Friday, July 5, 2024

World wide exhibitions of new tapestries




A new series of tapestries I've created entitled Plastic Oceans will be shown at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario Canada from July 20 - September 28 2024 as part of a group tapestry show featuring eight other tapestry weavers from across Canada. 

Opening Reception: July 20   13h - 16h. (1pm - 4pm)

I hope I will have the pleasure of seeing you then. If not, then perhaps you can visit during the coming months. 


The World in Pieces has been selected to be part of Heallreaf V, three exhibitions in the UK. I will be in attendance at the closing of the last exhibition ceremony on the last day, April 6 2025. 

Heallreaf 5
Weston Park, Shropshire, UK
June 29 - August 29 2024

Heallreaf 5
Morley Gallery, London, UK
December 10 - 20, 2024

Heallreaf 5
Farfield Mill, Cumbria, UK
January 8 - April 6, 2025



My most recent tapestry, Heart Strings, will be exhibited in Bogota Columbia

THROUGH LIFE / a través de la Vida
Casa Lleras
Biblioteca Museo Carlos Lleras Restrepo
Bogata, Columbia
Vernissage: October 23 2024
exhibition continues until December 6 2024




The Fate, Destiny and Self Determination installation will be exhibited in Guimaeres Portugal as part of Contextile 2024, thanks to Adrian Landry and Laurie Beland, part of the Biennial International de lin du Portneuf (BILP) who partner with Contextile. The dates of its exhibition fall exactly ten years after its first exhibition at Craft Ontario in Toronto, thanks to the efforts of Janna Hiemstra. 636 people from 44 countries have submitted 1064 pieces to the installation so far, and it continues to grow. 

Opening reception: September 7 2024. The exact location is yet to be announced. Please check their WEBSITE  for further details. 


 


 



Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Portrait of a Marriage


Conscious and unconscious memory is activated by our associations with cloth, stirring our senses and emotions. ‘Portrait of a Marriage’ is a textile assemblage book within which a poem reveals the intimate emotions and thoughts that textiles evoke. This oeuvre references the textile books of Louise Bourgeois. 


I awaken to the scent of your body
in the sheets and your pillow
in the clothes you wore  yesterday
still unwashed.
My hand caresses the creases
of where you lay
I inhale slowly and deeply 
absorbing the redolence
that still summons my love.
I sort through your clothes
where your absent body still resides
in the stains and in the folds
in the way your elbows and knees
have shaped them.
I leave them there, absented
your body still lingering
longing that once again
you  will inhabit them.
molecules and cells
imbedded between the threads
are all I have of you

now

Co. 2019 Line Dufour

Branded



Branded.
51cm x 47cm. cotton canvas, garment and domestic textile tags. machine stitched, embroidered.
2019



Though garments and household textiles we purchase may be recyclable and environmentally sustainable, the tags attached to them are not. Many rank others according to the fashion brands they purchase and acquire. This is an assemblage of people with small budgets and no extra money for the luxuries of designer products.

Threadbare



Diana Scott participated in the community component of Worn Worlds installation.  The absence of maternal love and affection in her life was revealed as she shared the story of her 1927 Patsy Ann doll. The many outfits made for this doll outlived Diana's mother and Grandmother, but not Diana's pain from the absence of love and affection towards her as a child.  The years fray and deconstruct the  dress as it does the toxic hold these unloving relationships had upon us.

Rhythms of Daily Life




Referencing Louise Bourgeois' textile works, and finding from them a source of inspiration, I played with useful textiles through the lens of art, and the eyes of an artist. It alludes to the repetitiveness of our daily domestic tasks. 


At Loose Ends


At Loose Ends
a series of textile sketches. Dryer sheets, denim work pants, cheesecloth, 
machine stitched, hand mended.
28cm x 21.5cm.

years fray my edges
wear me out in places
each thread pulling away
undoing the fabric of my life
time ripping and shredding
each thread a moment
a memory , an experience
an emotion, a parting
an anger, a tenderness
a resentment, a kindness
these threads woven together
the warp and weft of what I was
and am no longer
now that time has
unravelled

copyright Line Dufour 2019

Landscapes


Our personal narratives are pieced together by fragments of our past including the textiles that have accompanied us along the journey, imbuing them with memory and feelings. Embedded in cloth are our stories, our histories, our identities and our cultures.  Cloth arouses thoughts of warmth, comfort, protection and intimacy but also paradoxically, confinement, containment, fragility, and impermanence.  So much of women’s labour is invisible, impermanent and unseen. Domestic work is consumed, disintegrates, dissolves, disappears, is forgotten, is invisible…so many of these hours regarded as insignificant and inconsequential.
Landscapes (below) consists of four textile assemblages that paint the canvas of a domestic life.  Constructed of textiles collected over the duration of the artist’s life, these ‘Landscapes’ utilize everyday and mundane textiles that are part of domestic chores - endless menial tasks most often done without remuneration or praise, often not seen by others, and usually only noticed by a small and intimate circle. These textiles are silent witnesses, archaeological evidence of a life and its relationships. Each piece takes years to create and has left these markings ꟷ the wearing, the fraying, the stains and the rips. These ‘landscapes’ are the art that forms an ordinary life.


The Terrain Travelled: linen dishcloth, vintage flour bag, denim construction work pants, 'art' class apron, Queen of Hearts playing card: stitched
The Daily Terrain of Living. 101cm x 81cm. cotton, denim, dryer sheets, clothing tags. upcycled fabrics
2019

The Landscape of Everyday,  104cm x 78cm. Linen, cotton, denim, found objects. upcycled textiles. 2019

Dream Fields   86cm x 79cm. cotton pillowcase and bed sheet, dryer sheet, plastic netting, window screening, garment tag. 2019. 

Landscapes is attached with clothespeg to a clothesline. The clothespegs have a line of poetry written on each of them. Below, the pegs, along with the poem. 



Cloth accompanied
ordinary moments
of domesticity
ART of my life
these markings

Years disintegrate
my labours
stains
rips
frays
evidence of a life