August Maker of the Month
For Helen Otway, working with fibre has become a way of slowing down, paying attention and thinking through the act of making.
Based in the Northern Rivers, Helen has worked across painting, drawing, installation and mixed media. More recently, stitching and weaving have entered her practice, offering a new way to explore ideas of memory, place, impermanence and space.
In her third year at Byron School of Art, Helen is working towards her graduation show.
In Helen's Words
My stitched and woven linen works sit somewhere between drawing, painting and textile practice. I think of them as a form of expanded drawing, where the drawn line becomes a stitched or woven line, a way of mark making.
The works begin with structure, but gradually become less predictable. Lines cross and gather, fibres interrupt one another, and areas of density sit alongside open space.
The choice of fibre is central to developing this visual language. Kibiso silk forms the warp, weft and stitching, creating a quiet underlying structure. Hemp, cotton slub and nettle are woven through the surface, each bringing its own texture, weight and irregularity, while silk fern creates finer stitched marks.
Shop the fibres Helen works with: Kibiso silk, hemp, cotton slub, nettle and silk fern lace.
The fibres each have their own character. Some have strength, some softness, some resistance or irregularity. I'm interested in allowing those qualities to influence what the work becomes.
This attention to space connects with the Japanese concept of Ma — the interval, pause or space between things. I'm drawn to what happens when space is allowed to remain open: between stitches, within a grid, between marks or between one element and another.
Quietness doesn't mean an absence of strength.
There is a similar tension in Lunae Lacrimantes, a suspended installation of hand-stitched moons made from muslin and Tarlatan, with cotton slub, crochet cotton, Himalayan nettle and stainless steel silk, suspended from a found branch.
The translucent moons respond to light and movement, casting shadows and subtly changing as air moves through the space. Delicate materials are held in relationship with stronger fibres and the solidity of the branch.
The work continues my interest in the space beyond the surface of a drawing. What begins as a line on canvas can eventually become something suspended in three-dimensional space.
Across both bodies of work, the process is slow and tactile. Stitching and weaving require repetition, patience and attention, but they also allow room for intuition and discovery.
It is perhaps where head, heart and hands meet: thinking, feeling and making happening together.
I'm interested in work that can be quiet without being passive. There can be care and tenderness in the making, while the work itself still has strength.
HELEN OTWAY
Artist
helenotway.com
@helenotway_art
