In Islington’s Timeless Textiles Gallery next exhibition, Brett Alexander Recent Work: Textile, Paper and Material Studies, the artist downscales from his usually large installations to domestic scale studies celebrating textile craft.
In this exhibition Brett combines handmade and hand-woven cloth with tubes of ‘looped networks’ commonly referred to as knitting. For many years he has investigated modes of knitting outside of the traditional and widely known form of hand knitting using needles. The form he uses is often referred in Australia as ‘French knitting’ and internationally is referenced under a variety of names such as spool knitting, corking, i-cord, loom knitting and rake knitting. His focus is primarily on the circular form of this process.
Complimenting this is Brett’s use of handmade sa-paper, a type of ‘paper mulberry’ (Broussonetia Papyrifera). He has used this medium for more than 25 years, beginning in 1988 with his first research field trip to Chang Rai Provence in the Golden Triangle of Northern Thailand and a subsequent solo exhibition at Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, Bangkok. Since then Brett has made numerous return visits to Thailand and used sa-paper frequently, in collage and assemblage works that combine it with various other media and images.
As artist-researcher-teacher and Brett Alexander’s research outputs have been in the form of high quality examples of practice as research. These research outputs have been published in the form of exhibitions at nationally and internationally recognised art, design and craft museums, galleries and festivals. He has been included in seminal publications on textile art and crafts both nationally and internationally. He has been commissioned by highly esteemed nationally and internationally recognised curators to produce art work for exhibitions both in Australia and overseas.
7 Beaumont St Islington Newcastle NSW
