Design and Art Australia Online

Textile artist, exhibited her textile art in Homeground at Caloundra Regional Art Gallery, 2000, with her sister Kerry Johns .

Caloundra Regional Art Gallery Director Sandi Clarke wrote the following about the exhibition:

“Homeground is a collaborative exhibition on the theme of childhood memory and place by sisters Marianne Penberthy and Kerry Johns who grew up amidst their extended family in Caloundra during the fifties and sixties. The deaths of both parents early in the lives of the five Johns sisters, led to a separation of the family from Caloundra. Marianne lives in Geraldton in Western Australia and Kerry in the Blue Mountains in NSW.

For a year the artists have worked together to produce an exhibition with the memory of Caloundra as the theme. They have visited Caloundra on three occasions to work together in periods of intensive collaboration, returning to their studios in their home states to allow memory, new experience and impressions to filter into their work. Marianne remained in Caloundra for the final three months in order to work with the natural materials of the area.

Common motifs emerged spontaneously. The use of fragile filmy material such as organza, gauze and tracing paper, the use of words both sewn and painted, the map grid and the lattice pattern. Finding ways to creatively encounter memory has involved working with fragmentation and reconstruction, with fragility, remnants, scraps and layers, interleaved with strong subjective impressions. To both artists these were the means necessary to bring transparent and fragile recollection even momentarily into focus, and to give form to deep feeling.

The process of setting memory free and reconnecting with family and landscape has been a healing journey for the artists. “We needed to confront our deep sense of loss at the shattering of family and at the disappearance of personal landmarks in the town and landscape. But we have discovered that the place we grew up in still exists . in the memories of people. and that the enduring geography of this beautiful place is still present below the surface.”

Marianne Penberthy ( nee Johns), Homeground : Artist’s Statement

No matter where we are born there is a natural environment that envelops us. The power of the landscape of our childhood seems to enter our being, and as we grow up we develop a relationship with that place. I found through the process of creating this body of work, that physically walking the old routes of my childhood place activated my memory in such a way that was impossible for me to do from the other side of the country. Calling up that memory helped me to acknowledge how events in my life had torn my emotional connection with this landscape and with my family.

Working with the written word, originating from letters from my parents, which have survived for thirty years, gave me the thread to begin to stitch the tear back together. The use of stitched language as a focus in my art work has been a process of mending things once said, saying what has gone unsaid, reviewing words once written, revealing words trapped in the subconscious, and allowing events and emotions to float back into consciousness.

Acknowledging and creatively encountering the events that shaped this emotional disconnection has helped me work with my sense of loss and to strengthen the bond with my family and my landscape of origin.

Explanation re: Marianne’s Shoe Box Series

These images were taken during the process of the development of this installation. There will be fifty-seven boxes in the final format. The boxes are made of tracing paper dyed in natural dye & stitch with language relating to memory. The significance of the shoe boxes relates to my memories around my Father’s shoe shop and the laying out process of the boxes onto the gallery floor make subtle reference to the death of my parents.

Shoe Series

The shoes are a part of an installation of five gauze shoes. The shoes refer again to the family shoe shop & to my four sisters.

Lattice Series

This work was photographed in progress. The lattice has been constructed from scraps of silk. Fragments of letters have been spirit transferred onto the silk. The grid of the lattice has been hand stitched to an organza background & dyed in natural dye. The finished work will be suspended in the gallery space. This will be installed with a pair of silk lattice shoes.

Manuscript Series

The manuscripts refer to the reading of the letters and my own subconscious thoughts. There are five manuscripts in this series with references to remembered fragments of home.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1999

Last updated:

2011