I shall call myself a needle artist. That encompasses the wide range of activities I have been doing over my creative career. I am a passionate knitter with a bold and quirky aesthetic. A little too obsessed with tattoos and needles but making the most of this obsession. I use humour to add a lighthearted touch to serious and uncomfortable topics to help start a discussion about them. My work revolves around feminism, the unfair beauty ideals, period poverty. All presented in a manner that makes people question even their own stance on these topics and forces them to ask themselves why they feel the way they do when they look at my work.
Anna Tamas-Katzer
REPETITION
Feast Your Eyes
My re-word is repetition because research has found that the repetition of the same movement or task helps to ease anxiety and stress. And over this tough period of time, it was the repeating movements within knitting, crochet, embroidery, tattooing, that helped me stay sane.
'Feast Your Eyes' is an investigation into the relationship between food and the female body. This story is about the consumption of the female body, the consumption of the flesh. The series of photographs draw a parallel between the guilty pleasures we have for food and the gaze the female body receives. There is also a constant juxtaposition between the real world and the knitted pieces as they are placed into an ‘everyday’ context. This quality of the project is a depiction of my lockdown headspace.
Eat Up
The gaze at a fried shrimp — Knitted shrimp
That lovely spagetti — Knitted bodysuit, knitted spagetti plate
Eating with your tits out
Prepping — Knitted chillies camouflaging amongst real chillies
The idea of 'consumption' and indulgence. There is a parallel between the the gaze on the female body and on food. A guilty please, both have been sexualised and can be 'consumed'. The one person dinner party photo series is a continuation of the knitted bodysuits worn as a 'second skin' they are a reflection of people's new fear after lockdown has been eased 'what do I wear out?' and 'how do I behave in public?' Well, when inside your own home, with you own home cooked dinner, you do not need to worry about your outfit you were whatever is most comfortable. That's sometimes just chilling by the diner table, eating with your tits out.
Notting Hill Arts Club — Knitted croissant hiding amongst the real stuff.
The Crisp Descision — Lay's bag by the crisp aisle
Lay's Sour Cream & Onion — Handknitted bag with embroidery
Selecting the right chocolate — Corner shop chocolate aisle
Twix Bag — Hand knitted bag with embroidery
The placement of the knitted food items aim to depict my lockdown headspace as I try to break away from my room into the real world and see what's out there. I also liked the fact that when you enter a grocery shop, there are s many things around you, you can not make out anything at first until you look closer. I have placed the knitted pieces into an 'everyday' context because I wanted to see how well they could blend into the real world rather than making them stand out.