Sainsbury Centre - exhibitions 15/08/2010

Just got back from a lovely afternoon out with my friend looking at the current exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich.  have been meaning to visit the Henry Moore Textiles exhibition for ages and have just got in in time, fortunately the unearthed exhibition had started so we were able to look at both.  As an added bonus the reserve collection was open - a real mix match of items which were very interesting to wander round.

Unearthed exhibition
The exhibition holds many figures from Japan and Romania dating from 3000BC.  Although geographically distant there were similarities between the cultures and between the figures found at both sites. 

The exhibition made me think about the collective unconsciousness relating to both art and music. I find it incredibly interesting that cultures and communities, where the peoples would never have traveled and met each other, have produced art and music that is surprisingly similar. 

The figures in the exhibition were small and the majority where of the female human form (breast mounds signified this).  The Japanese figures are called Dogu.  There are similarities between the figures in that they are of a similar range of sizes, where found in similar areas within the sites and are on the whole basic representations of humans. 

Seeing the figures has made me think about the air drying clay I have sitting in my art cupboard and that I would maybe like to try to make some similar as some of them are so very beautiful.

Henry Moore Textiles
Until I saw this exhibition advertised I wasn't aware that Henry Moore had designed any textiles (I was not alone - a fact noted by the curators in the introduction area!)

Moore designed large wall hangings as well as a number of fabric designs and one of the silk squares or scarves for Ascher. Ascher printed Moore's fabrics using screen printing techniques onto silk, linen,cotton and rayon. 

I found out that a serigraph describes an artist's screen printed fabric - this distinguishes it from a commercial screen print. 

There are a number of links between his sculptures, ideas for sculptures and his fabric designs. 

I noted how interesting it is too see how different the same design looks in different colourways and look forward to trying this out when I do printing and textile courses in the future.  I have some ideas from his designs that I would like to try out myself - some of the designs are almost batik like and I have already been thinking that I would like to create some contemporary and not 'hippyish' batiks.  It has made me think even more about an idea I have to use old plain fabrics from charity shops (sheets, duvet covers etc) and then print on to these to use for bunting, patchwork, quilts etc. 

There were pages from his sketchbooks to look at this and this has made me think about how I will be able to use a lot of different media when I start my own textile sketchbooks - I noted that he had used pencil, wax crayons, watercolour, chalk, ink, pen and washes often within the same design - I must remember to use lots of diff things and see how the diff effects are and how they relate to diff aspects of the design and different techniques e.g I might use a wash for the background colour, wax crayon around batik, felt tip pen to show embroidery, stick on bits to show sequins, beads etc.