Allegory: SOLO EXHIBITION
Craft Study Centre, Farnham and Tour
'Allegory’ (2009–2010) was a solo touring exhibition hosted by the Craft Study Centre, UCA Farnham, and documented in the accompanying catalogue ‘Alice Kettle: Allegory’ by Simon Olding.
‘Allegory’ reflects Alice Kettle’s interest in the ways narrative can be expressed through machine-worked embroidery, encompassing both large-scale wall hangings and a series of intimate, symbolic three-dimensional works.
The exhibition took as its starting point the painting ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ by Poussin and applied allegory to personal, hidden, and gendered narratives. The recurring theme of time drew attention to the cyclical and rhythmic repetition of stitch, both as an act of making and as a means of marking time. The works built upon explorations associated with women Surrealist artists.
Autobiographical and feminine concerns were central to the works, with visual narratives interwoven with the allegorical and the epic. The centrepiece of the exhibition was the large panel ‘Pause II’, a deeply personal depiction of the artist and her daughters that incorporated fragments of her mother’s dresses. The commanding figure of Janus was also present in this work and was echoed by a new ceramic piece by Stephen Dixon, Kettle’s colleague at Manchester Metropolitan University, with whom she collaborated.
Kettle described the project as follows:
I used the painting ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ as a starting point for a tableau to describe the momentum of life. Within it are elements that I 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 these apart and use stitch to reconnect the disparate elements, much as our lives are reconfigured and shaped by circumstance.
Seasons: Four characters, joined. Like spring, summer, autumn, and winter, we are defined by our changing faces and yet remain ourselves.
Cycle: A sense of the continuum of life, repeating and echoing from one generation to the next. There are many connecting orbits within our lives—cyclical and overlapping patterns.
Time: The uninterrupted beat. Like the rhythmic motion of the sewing machine, time has a repetitive pulse, relentlessly moving forward. I wanted to create pauses in time, to stop the dance and capture the moment.
Material: Paper, clay, thread. I sought to connect material forms so that conversations between materials mirrored those between time and people, one leading and connecting to another. Stephen Dixon’s ceramics and our shared development of ideas expanded the tableau and narrative.
Thread: For me, this is the beginning—the material and metaphor of an ongoing life, implying an unbroken journey.
Drawing: The start of everything, where line becomes conversation. This shared exploration with Stephen Dixon has developed into an ongoing creative exchange.
