In late 216 I was introduced to tapestry artist Justine Randall, who was at the time creating a new body of work for a solo exhibition “The Woven Landscape”, shown at the Winchester Gallery, Winchester School of Art in March 2017. I was honoured to be invite to write the essay for the accompanying publication. Here is an extract:
The very nature of tapestry speaks of time and place: a slow artform, where even small works have the potential to take months to complete; and one that needs a sturdy structure on which the artist works. A tapestry artist will typically spend a very long period with her loom set up in a particular and unchanging work space, painstakingly creating each work. Justine Randall’s work goes far beyond that: each piece of weaving is itself a very particular evocation of time and place. Randall is a story-teller, and the intense colours and rich textures in her work create interwoven yarns, telling stories about contemporary places, but in a very contemporary abstracted style. There are three bodies of work in this exhibition, each telling tales of very different places and times, rural and urban, ancient and modern, from day to night and throughout the year.
Images courtesy Justine Randall.
Liz Cooper 