HOME Exhibition 'The Golden Rule'
9 - 27 June 2010
Innovation & Creative Development in Craft
University of Dundee
Dalhousie Building
Old Hawkhill
Balfour Street
DD1 4HB
The body as a blank canvas: an investigation into historical aspects of pattern cutting in relation to individuality in contemporary clothing.
preview some of the other work here
'Collarbone'
"Clothes are part of our identity and our immediate visual language. The relationship we have with our clothes influences or determines the relationship we have with our bodies.
My work is inspired by the complexity of the evolution of pattern cutting during Victorian and Edwardian times, taking the industrialisation of clothing patterns as a starting point, and it examines the effect this has had on contemporary clothing.
It is also about the mundane aspect of making; building, by hand, from the raw material, stitching, working with details such as pockets, collars, cuffs, button holes. In this way I am truly exploring the relationship between material and body.
I am interested in conceptualising the mark making and coding used on conventional patterns, developing a rhetoric between hand crafting and cultural and aesthetic values.
I have created a new contemporary fabric based on the visual language of working dress making patterns from the past. In this way this exhibition is a reflection, a reminder and also a revaluation of the process of dressmaking.
I have looked closely at details such as sleeves, pockets, collars and cuffs. Each of these small exquisite pieces both explore the body from the tailor's perspective, and inspire a series of installations of fragmented, sometimes repeated shapes. These fragments develop further into intriguing sculptural pieces with references both to their two and three dimensional origins.
Garment making based on a real body is a complex and challenging process - a symphony of cutting and stitching."
Jeanette Sendler June 2010
'BodyScape' Jeanette constructing her 'BodyScape'
