Allegory

Allegory: A metaphor.

A Dance to the Music of Time. I have used the painting as a starting point for a tableau to describe the momentum of life. Within it are elements that I have held onto as a list to structure and shape my thoughts on life. In allegory, there are underlying messages and subtext. For me there are also ecstatic heights, echoes of the past, dark hollows, and emerging light. I wanted to cut them up and use stitch to reconnect the disparate parts, much as our lives reconfigure to be shaped by circumstance.

Seasons: 4 characters, joined. Similar to Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, we are defined by our changing faces and yet remain ourselves.

Cycle: The sense of the continuum of life which repeats and echoes from one generation into the next. There are so many connecting orbits within our lives that are cyclical or overlapping patterns.

Time: The uninterrupted beat. Much like the rhythmic motion of the sewing machine time has its repetitive pulse, relentlessly moving you forward. I wanted to make pauses in time, to stop the dance and to capture the moment.

Material: Paper, clay, thread. I searched to connect the material forms, so that the conversations between materials become like those of time and people, whereby you visit one and are led and connected to another. Stephen Dixon’s ceramics and our collaborative drawing together of ideas made a vastly wider tableau and narrative.

Thread: For me this is the start, the material and the metaphor of an ongoing life which implies an unbroken journey.

Drawing: The start of everything, where the line becomes the conversation. This shared exploration with Stephen Dixon has become an ongoing creative exchange.

Alice Kettle