Transformative Threads

This series began during an unexpected pause: a week spent confined to the sofa with my young child recovering from chickenpox. With my usual materials and space out of reach, my practice was reduced to what could fit on my lap. I found myself stitching into fragments of discarded canvas —embroidering along cracks and breaks in the surface.

As I worked, I was drawn back to my first creative experiences — learning to sew alongside my mum. There was something cyclical in this moment: now a mother myself, caring for my child while practicing a form of making so deeply entwined with domesticity and care. The act of stitching became both a creative and maternal gesture, connecting past and present, child and parent.

My identity as an artist may well have had its roots in those early skills, but I would never have claimed that this was an artistic practice. I had absorbed the art world's idea that practices like sewing and embroidery — traditionally associated with women and the home — did not count as serious artistic work. In revisiting these materials and methods, and reconnecting with my formative creative years, the development of these artworks became a reflection on my own evolution as an artist.