Sewing Scars, 2020-Ongoing, cotton thread on unbleached cotton, 150cm (w) x 220cm (l)

Exploring stitch as mark making, gesture and form, this continuous, ongoing thread drawing is a visual homage to my mother. Born and raised in a village at the base of Mt Etna, Sicily, she worked as a seamstress after migrating to Far North Queensland; a skill passed down from generation to generation. Using her vintage sewing machine, the reoccurring and accumulating lines symbolise heritage, bloodlines, journey and memory, yet are chaotic and rebellious traces of my refusal and inability to learn her craft. The spontaneous and unpredictable exploration of mechanical stitching form irregular loops of thickly massed, tangled and snapped cotton; emphasised by my struggles with threading, feeding and jamming. Through networks, layers and contours of overlapping, reversing, interconnecting and absent lines, the surface tension represents the undulating volcanic and lava-like landscape of my ancestral origin. Blurring boundaries between drawing, textiles and sculpture, Sewing Scars conceptualises broken generational and cultural traditions between ‘mother and daughter’ and ongoing frustrations between ‘seamstress and artist’.