LIZ WILLIAMSON

The idea for Listening comes from the writing of renowned artist and weaver, Anni Albers. In her 1982 essay Materials as Metaphor, she wrote of threads ‘I learned to listen to them and to speak their language, I learned the process of handling them’. * Albers advocated spending time with materials to ascertain their character, quality, texture, and ability to convey ideas, connecting the act of listening to artistic innovation and excellence.

Listening is an exploration of materials: diverse, flexible, spun or constructed from natural, metallic, or synthetic fibres. Threads gathered over many years from various places are stored and saved in Williamson’s studio as examples of interesting weaving materials. Listening is a device for understanding materials as it reveals their character; an innovative experiment to explore their materiality, texture, and potential as a means of communication and adding value to a future weaving.

Like many of Williamson’s weavings, Listening has been woven in a plain structure with the weft inserted in a very specific way. Both ends of each long weft were woven into two separate sections, layered together at the top to allow the yarns to loop, twist, show their nature - seen in their raw state, a characteristic that Albers appreciated in weaving.

Listening also references the work of fibre artist Sheila Hicks who has created installations of threads, fibres, and yarns since the 1970’s. Materials for her artworks are draped, wrapped, twisted, knotted, bound, rolled, plaited, interlaced or woven - all ways that allow the material to speak. To quote Hicks, ‘materials encouraged a certain manner of visual listening...inviting participation and perception through your eyes. One can detect subtle harmonies, discover intricate structures, complex sequences, and enjoy an infinite range of colours, as when you listen to music’. **

In the light of these great artists, Listening is an experiment, a different way of working that extends Williamson’s practise by creating a way of knowing diverse materials - a very different weaving and colour to what she has made before.

*Anni Albers, Material as metaphor, unpublished statement 25 Feb 1982; published in Anni Albers: selected writings on design, edited by Brenda Danilowitz, Wesleyan University Press 2000. P 73

**Sheila Hicks 2021 exhibition Music to my eyes at Alison Jacques Gallery, London. https://alisonjacques.com/exhibitions/music-to-my-eyes Accessed 25/6/21.

Liz Williamson is a Sydney based weaver, academic, curator and textile artist. At the heart of her practice is an interest in innovative, experimental, and unusual designs created at the loom. Recent weavings reference woven rag rugs and the idea of 'making do' with readily available materials, often coloured with natural dyes.

Since 2006, she has held 10 solo exhibitions with the latest, Weaving Eucalypts Project touring 2022 to 2024 and participated in over 60 group exhibitions. Recent curated exhibitions are Local Colour: experiments in nature, UNSW Galleries (2018) and Weaving matter; form and context, Australian Design Centre (2023).

Williamson was awarded the prestigious Living Treasure award in 2008 and is represented in many Australian public collections. Williamson has been an educator for 40 years and is an Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney.

Listening, 2023
Handwoven with a warp of cotton, silk, cotton polyester and Tencel fine threads and forty different wefts made from cotton, silk, linen, wool, alpaca, hemp, mohair, rubber, polyester, elastic, abaca, raffia, paper cord, reflective tape, nylon monofilament, vinyl cord sari silk, suede rope, jewellery wire and stainless steel.
1600mm L x 600mm W x 200mm H
$5,400