Mandy Pattullo: Well Worn Work
Mandy Pattullo treasures the old and worn, refashioning disintegrating and tired antique textiles into evocative collages. Her exhibition showcases work made predominantly from old quilts, which are unpicked, reconfigured and patch worked together to create new surfaces, which are then embellished with simple stitch and applique.
Mandy Pattullo makes textile collages which bring together old and often disintegrating textiles with hand stitched marks. She generates interesting surface textures and fragments for these collages through unpicking and deconstructing quilts, garments, ethnic and domestic textiles. All are rescued and reworked. They are patched together and embellished with traditional embroidery stitches. These collages can be stand-alone pieces, designed to be wall hung, applied to garments, or collected within an artist’s book structure.
After several years of teaching in an art college, where she facilitated trends driven experimentation in print and embroidery, Mandy has, for the last fifteen years, developed a practice which is based on references to, and using, historical textiles and traditional techniques. In nearly all her work she uses fragments of discarded north country quilts. Using products sourced and made locally has helped Mandy to appreciate the importance of relating to the textile traditions of her particular area (the North East of England) and the collecting of old quilts and embroideries has opened up many textile conversations about the sewing generated in domestic settings.
Through preserving the discarded and overlooked, and refashioning these rescued rags in to new patchworks, Mandy hopes to force the viewer to re-examine fabrics that have become flawed through wear and tear and find in them a new beauty.