Toose, Kirry (AUS)
Infinite Variety
Kirry is an experienced designer, textile artist and educator. This is her second time as a finalist in Paper on Skin™.
In her Artist Statement, Kirry says: “My artwork and practice is created as a response to a subject matter or topic, through the use of textiles and fibre as my preferred medium. Continually questioning and exploring the selection of fibre and construction in relationship to the framework of the body, which also determines how the viewer perceives and subsequently remembers and relates to the artwork. …I tell stories within my garments; I use the artwork as a carrier for emotional, personal and social issues which are all interconnected.”
Infinite Variety is inspired by the ‘Femme Fatale’ Marchesa Luisa Casati, who was considered Europe’s most notorious celebrity. I am envious of her confidence ‘to dare.’
She was known to be erratic, erotic and effervescent.
A wild woman who inspired artists and designers alike, Erte, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton and more recently John Galliano and Yves Saint Laurent just to name a few.
...’ and that is what is left to us of Casati: a dark riddle to dream on.’ Judith Thurman.
For many years my muse has been Luisa Casati and I can’t help but keep coming back to her infamous story and drawn in by her exoticism and those eyes!
Responding to the feminine connotations one automatically assumes when referencing the title; the context hints at the constraints of women, exploring the variation in the good and the bad, which is represented in the black and the white choice of the colour scheme.
Again, the eyes – heavy make-up has its own subtext!
The black & white stripes have been individually applied by machine into the abstract skirt shape, along with the adaptation of my original drawing of her face and the application of bramble leaves. The quote by Shakespeare, which is on Luisa Casati’s tombstone, is stencilled around the skirt hemline.
TECHNIQUES
Appliqué, free machining, hand-stitched, stencilled.
materials
Kozo paper, boning, lining.
See the Work on Film
Photos Credit: Grant Wells Photo