4TOLD: Tawny Maclachlan Capon

Quintas (2022) Installation. Wool blankets, netting, silk cocoons, ink, handstitching

It is always a great privilege to share gallery space with Tawny Maclachlan Capon. Her work has always been a dance of the colours, textures, and gestures inherent in a wide range of materials, whether garnered from nature or reclaimed from the leavings of a manufacturing process. The poignancy rising from the interplay of media not usually associated with art or craft foretells a rhythm, a thrum, that prompts the viewer to viscerally engage with each score she presents. Capon’s background in ballet has given her a strong spatial sense, which is particularly evident in the new work created for 4TOLD, which moves off the wall and into the centre of the gallery.

Quintas (2022) Installation. Wool blankets, netting, silk cocoons, ink, handstitching

Quintas (2022) Detail

Quintas (2022) Detail.

Quintas (2022) Detail.

I felt that the piece below, one thousand seven hundred and twenty, was a breakthrough work for Tawny. Using a type case that had long stood in her father's printing business, she has fitted each drawer with her own woven and knitted works, cut to fit the units that once were filled with bits of metal type. The links between personal history, language and communication are given a masterful, surrealist spin with the rich and varied colours, textures and weaves of the cloth that line the drawers.

one thousand seven hundred and twenty (2022) Vintage metal type case, wool, cotton, linen, handwoven and knitted fabric, graphite on tracing paper

one thousand seven hundred and twenty (2022) Vintage metal type case, wool, cotton, linen, handwoven and knitted fabric, graphite on tracing paper

one thousand seven hundred and twenty (2022) Detail

one thousand seven hundred and twenty (2022) Detail