UK artist Sally Hewett uses the art of embroidery to explore ideas of beauty and ugliness related to the human body, and the conventions that determine which is seen as which.
She is interested in why some characteristics of bodies are considered beautiful and others ugly or disgusting, and in the social and political history of stitching and embroidery. Her work is an investigation of the divide between craft and art too.
She works mainly with fabrics, using hand stitching, embroidery, upholstery and toy-making techniques. Sally is interested in how we see things and how we interpret what we see: “Does my particular way of representing bodies, using fabrics and stitching, affect how the content of the work is seen? Is it seen as ugly, disgusting, beautiful, erotic, or just funny?”.
She loves bodies as subject of her art. It is not the conventionally beautiful bodies that interested her, but it is bodies which show their history, that have been altered by their experiences, that are decorated with bruises, scars, spots, stretch marks, freckles, pigmentation, veins. Bodies that have the marks of life on them and also the ones which have been deliberately altered and decorated.
For some of her recent work Sally has been looking at plastic surgery, implants, use of fillers etc. – the desire to change anything which fails to comply with the conventional ideal, e.g. large noses, small breasts, fat bellies and bottoms, stretch marks, body hair.
Images courtesy of Sally Hewett
Discover: www.sallyhewett.co.uk
