Juliet D Collins - 'Threads of Melbourne'

Wednesday 8 - Sunday 26 November 2017

"These vibrant scenes of Melbourne city life are sketched on site, embroidered in thread on recycled papers, collaged with fabric and worked into with other drawing materials. My aim is to convey the atmosphere of the moment, my love of Melbourne’s spaces and the city’s unique character and architecture.

I am passionate about drawing and I strive to maintain the immediacy and spontaneity of the drawn line in all my work. Figure drawing directly from the life model and sketching the world around me are the cornerstones of my artistic practice. For many years now I have been exploring the unique expressive potential of thread as an artistic medium. 

The works presented here are developed directly from the pages of my sketchbooks, the original lines drawn on site in some of my favourite spaces around Melbourne. I use freehand machine embroidery on paper to reproduce my spontaneously drawn line, then collage with fabric and recycled papers. Finally I work into the piece with a variety of my favourite drawing materials including pencil, water-soluble crayons, chinagraph, charcoal, oil pastel, ink and gouache.

I am fascinated by the interplay between the ordered structure of the built environment of the city and the ever changing organic flow of humanity travelling through it, bringing light, colour, movement and unpredictability. These ideas are inherent in my making process and as I work on each piece I am constantly striving to find the balance between chaos and order. I aim to provide the viewer with an experiential view of the spaces and to portray the immediacy and atmosphere of a fleeting moment in time and place."