Annely Juda

Sigrid Holmwood

09 Oct - 21 Dec 2012

Sigrid Holwood film: 'How to make Dongba Paper' 2012
SIGRID HOLMWOOD
9 October - 21 December 2012

In conjunction with the exhibition 'Journey to Wumu', Sigrid Holmwood and Annely Juda Fine Art present a Workshop demonstration in harvesting, extracting and dyeing with Chinese Indigo.

Sigrid Holmwood is part of a new generation of artists that are responding to the decadent big gestures of the boom-years by reviving manual labour and traditional crafts as a part of contemporary art.

Sigrid Holmwood is known for her playful 'method' painting, through which she makes all her own paints, re-creating historic 16th century recipes and inventing new profane mixtures. Rather than being just a conservative return to painting, this is a way of working that re-frames painting within the recent tendencies of relational aesthetics - a hands-on approach which highlights the origins, stories and relationships behind the very materials of painting.

Last year she was invited to China for a couple of months by Vitamin Creative to explore the histories and materials of Chinese painting. Her research took her from the urban middle class 'community supported agriculture' movement of Beijing, to staying with a group of ethnic minority Dongba shamans who live in the Yulong mountains and make their own paper as a part of the rites of their religion. One of the discoveries that she made during her research trip was the use of dye-plants in traditional Chinese medicine, which forms the basis of her current exhibition of paintings, now on show at Annely Juda Fine Art. The paintings are all made with her own paper which she has made from fabric dyed with healing medicinal plants.

This workshop will demonstrate the harvesting, extraction and dyeing with Chinese Indigo that has been growing in the gallery. This indigo is the direct descendent of the Chinese Indigo which she cultivated in a Community Supported Agriculture urban farm in Beijing, called Little Donkey Farm last year.
 

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