Rachel Pearcey

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Warp, weft, stitch, thread 2021

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Rachel Pearcey’s work is about drawing and repetition, and stitching.  For some time now she has been reworking her pen and ink drawings but with stitching on canvas.  With thread her works take on a very subtle and delicate 3D quality and in spite of how slow the process and how considered the placing of every stitch, each work moves and develops in its own way, takes on a life of its own.

 

The Soft Quiet Vessels were started during lockdown, and the artist feels they are a natural progression,  moving from the very subtle ‘3D-ness’ of the stitched drawings to actual 3D.  The surface stitching - darts, tucks and quilting - echo the repetition and marks of the stitched drawings, while their softness, malleability and silence create their own quiet time and space.

 

Felted natural wool blankets are used to create the forms which are then covered with vintage linen and lined with old damask napkins or table cloths, sometimes natural muslin. There is a size greater than which they will not stand up, the larger bottle being a case in point,but, as she says, the sagging can be quite appealing.  The quilting stiffens them, adds to their rigidity.

 

All the textiles used are secondhand, recycling is very important to the artist.

 

Rachel Pearcey has an MA Drawing as Process, Kingston University, London, a BA Fine Art, University of Plymouth and City & Guilds Cabinet Making, Bristol. She lives and works in Kingston Upon Thames.