NEON BLOOM
Thread/Machine Embroidery Installation
Amanda McCavour
On display from 30 March – 26 August
Neon Bloom is a thread installation that transforms the gallery into a faux ecosystem as a means of considering reactive and adaptive strategies. Comprised of hundreds of suspended sculptural elements, this constructed ecosystem is further shaped by the artist’s imagination of how nutrient cycles, energy flows, and topologies might affect these blooming forms.
For this project the artist begins with a sewing machine to create three dimensional thread drawings. Stitched lines are made on a temporary surface by sewing onto fabric that dissolves in water. The crossing threads create strength so that when the fabric is dissolved the thread drawing can hold together without a base. These flat embroideries are then sculpted with heat to create a three-dimensional form.
During the installation period leading up to the opening of the show, Neon Bloom takes on a life of its own in the gallery space, hooking into ceilings, spreading across walls, wedging into corners and anchoring along ledges. Once the installation process is complete, hundreds of blooms cluster, float and spread through the space, creating an intensely coloured and immersive environment.
Neon Bloom investigates the sculptural potential of this embroidery process and explores the dualities that embroidery offers – the subtle qualities versus an accumulative and persistent presence and the structural possibilities versus the inherent fragility.
Amanda McCavour is a Toronto-based artist who works with stitch to create large-scale embroidered installations. She is interested in thread’s assumed vulnerability, its ability to unravel, and its strength when it is sewn together.
McCavour uses a sewing machine to create thread drawings and installations. By sewing into fabric that dissolves in water, she can build up stitched lines on a temporary surface. The crossing threads create strength so that when the fabric is dissolved, the thread drawing can hold together without a base. With only the thread remaining, these images appear as though they would be easily unraveled and seemingly on the verge of falling apart, despite the works raveled strength.
Through an exploration of line and its 2-d and 3-d implications, stitch is used in her artwork to explore various concepts such as connections to home, the fibers of the body and more formal considerations of thread’s accumulative presence. Amanda’s work explores embroidery’s duality- it’s subtle quality versus it’s accumulative
presence and its structural possibilities versus its fragility. Through experimentation and creation within her studio, she continues to investigate line in the context of embroidery, drawing and installation.
McCavour holds a BFA from York University where she studied drawing and installation and has recently completed her MFA in Fibers and Material Studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. McCavour shows her work in galleries nationally and internationally with recent solo exhibitions in Gatineau (QB), Williamsport (PA) and Vancouver (BC). She has received awards and scholarships from the Ontario Crafts Council, The Handweavers and Spinners Guild of America, The Ontario Crafts Council, The Ontario Society of Artists, The Surface Design Association and The Embroiderers Guild of America for her work.
