Aimee Knowles

Aimee Knowles

What do we see, when we are looking?

We look at nature with a tendency to see it as a scene in front of us, as a unified whole. In that scene, we may be conscious of some daffodils, a bunch of blackberries, a bed of bluebells, a small stream behind the grasses. Yet there are less obvious things that also contribute unconsciously to what we see. Things like how the colours, textures and patterns in the environment around us are constantly in flux and flow. They move in response to wind, rain, light, heat, and in response to one another. How all those ingredients function together is what makes nature so peaceful and healing. For me as an artist, my creative practice is both inspired by and expresses my responses to the unconscious aspects of the natural world. The shifting interplays and feelings they evoke are what my work seeks to consider and convey.

Specifically, I explore colour, texture, and pattern using a wide range of materials such as ceramics, acrylic paint, embroidery silks, and pen and ink. I take a multi-disciplinary approach because it helps me to investigate the things around me from different perspectives. In a similar way, making work that combines different processes such as painting, weaving, stitching and ceramics enables me to produce a range of outcomes that function together. Each process, each outcome is a unique reflection of its inspiration from the natural world.

I developed my work for this exhibition from my own reference photographs. The paintings mainly focus on colour and pattern, deliberately and minutely investigating selected plants I encountered when on walks. The embroidery pieces emphasise colour and texture. They explore how colour and texture engage the viewer in a dialogue between themselves and what might in other circumstances be everyday flora. Here, subjects such as moss growing on the branches and trunks of trees, groups of flowers, wild berries and fallen leaves are reconceptualised in the gallery space and represented as works of art, as well as works of nature. The textured domes look at texture and pattern in nature and are inspired by objects like pinecones/pine needles, dirt, leaves and rocks.

Overall, it is my love of nature that most powerfully influences my practice as an artist.

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