Exhibition

Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®

<p>Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads&reg;</p>

When

06 August 2020 -
30 August 2020

Location

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

181-187 Hay St, Haymarket

In a period of uncertainty and stasis, artists have demonstrated the capacity of human creativity through artistic innovation, lateral thought, and inspired action. In our current period of changes and shifts, 4A is pleased to invite you to engage with Holding Patterns, a series of four solo exhibitions on view from July to October. These exhibitions highlight and support the works of Sydney-based artists Kien SituCrossing Threads®Shireen Taweel and Sofiyah Ruqayah, utilising our ground-floor gallery space and windows out onto Haymarket’s streets.

Referring to the aeronautical manoeuvre of an airplane forced to delay its landing procedure to avoid potential disaster, a holding pattern suggests divergence from an established routine and the suspension of normalcy. Crucially, it is an action of adaptability: a pilot executing specific turns whilst accounting for wind speed and direction to establish its course. The pattern achieves seemingly limitless flight, looping until given permission to commence its landing operations, once again returning to earth and reality. It is in this moment of suspension that we find ourselves undertaking our own rituals of contemplation, addressing our own pathways forward in a time of stillness.

For the exhibiting artists COVID-19 has been an unexpected intervention, a force majeure. Forced out of their routines, artists have now been given opportunities to reflect on what it means to be creatively-engaged during a time of crisis. Contemplating artistic practice with the arts industry shut down, Holding Patterns demonstrates the resilience and ingenuity of artists during this time.. Some have taken time to rest and recharge, quietly laying projects to rest to make way for new ideas, while others have pivoted to hone their craft. 

Through textiles, sculptures, metallurgy, drawing and painting, the artists of Holding Patterns deftly navigate cultural histories, identities, object permanence and transmutation through process-based practice. As the first exhibiting artist, Kien Situ creates architecturally-informed sculptures of domestic and sacred objects and furniture rendered with obscurity in form, function and material. The complex ‘interknot’ technique of Crossing Threads® embraces compositional tension and release in the contrasting tones and textures of their lyrical, abstracted pieces. Shireen Taweel modernises the traditional art of copper-smithing to create pieces that blur the line between jewellery and sculpture, opening dialogues of shared histories and relationships between communities of fluid identities. Sofiyah Ruqayah’s indeterminate forms draw upon mutations of human and non-human realities, generating connections between tangible bodies and aetheric dreams and spirit worlds informed by cultural myths of embodiment.

Fusing together their own creative impulses within traditional methods, these artists make mass departures from ‘normal’ culturally-concerned art making. It is within these strays from tradition and the ‘expected’ that new cultural dialogues can begin to emerge, representing the hybridity of Asian-Australian contemporary art practice. By merging traditional Asian techniques and labour-intensive processes, Holding Patterns relishes in craftsmanship and provides opportunities to glimpse the artists’ material worlds of contemplation and stillness, offering momentary suspension from our own holding patterns.

View the Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads® roomsheet here.

View the Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads® roomsheet here.

Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®: (Back Right): THE DIVIDE (detail), 2020, alpaca, bamboo, canvas, cotton, cotton roping, felted Merino wool, hand cut denim, hand cut leather, hand dyed raffia, hand dyed Shibori, hemp, linen, marine roping, Merino wool, mixed natural fibres, Pima cotton; suspended off a painted Tasmanian oak wooden dowel; handwoven by Kass Hernandez, courtesy the artists.
Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®: (Back Right): THE DIVIDE (detail), 2020, alpaca, bamboo, canvas, cotton, cotton roping, felted Merino wool, hand cut denim, hand cut leather, hand dyed raffia, hand dyed Shibori, hemp, linen, marine roping, Merino wool, mixed natural fibres, Pima cotton; suspended off a painted Tasmanian oak wooden dowel; handwoven by Kass Hernandez, courtesy the artists.
Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020, courtesy of the artists.
Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®, UNDER MY SKIN (detail view), 2020, Bamboo, chenille, Egyptian cotton, hemp, Japanese silk, jute, leather, linen, merino wool, mulberry tussah, raffia and wire on galvanised steel frame Handwoven by Lauren and Kass Hernandez, photo: Kai Wasikowski, image courtesy of the artists.
Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®, UNDER MY SKIN, 2020, Bamboo, chenille, Egyptian cotton, hemp, Japanese silk, jute, leather, linen, merino wool, mulberry tussah, raffia and wire on galvanised steel frame Handwoven by Lauren and Kass Hernandez, courtesy of the artists.
Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®: (Back Right): THE DIVIDE, 2020, alpaca, bamboo, canvas, cotton, cotton roping, felted Merino wool, hand cut denim, hand cut leather, hand dyed raffia, hand dyed Shibori, hemp, linen, marine roping, Merino wool, mixed natural fibres, Pima cotton; suspended off a painted Tasmanian oak wooden dowel; handwoven by Kass Hernandez. Left Wall Right: Crossing Threads, Consolation, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, handspun upcycled yarn, hemp, leather, linen and mixed natural fibres framed in Tasmanian oak. Handwoven by Kass Hernandez,  courtesy the artists.
Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020, Kass Hernandez of Crossing Threads® with the following works: (Left) Crossing Threads®, Seek, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, hemp, Japanese silk and paper, linen, mixed natural fibres and sari silk framed in Tasmanian oa. Handwoven by Lauren Hernandez. (Right) Crossing Threads®, Consolation, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, handspun upcycled yarn, hemp, leather, linen and mixed natural fibres framed in Tasmanian oak. Handwoven by Kass Hernandez.
Image: Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. From Left: Crossing Threads®, Seek, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, hemp, Japanese silk and paper, linen, mixed natural fibres and sari silk framed in Tasmanian oa. Handwoven by Lauren Hernandez. Centre: Crossing Threads®, Consolation, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, handspun upcycled yarn, hemp, leather, linen and mixed natural fibres framed in Tasmanian oak. Handwoven by Kass Hernandez. Right: Crossing Threads®, Inward State, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, hemp, Japanese silk and paper, linen, mixed natural fibres and sari silk framed in Tasmanian oak. Handwoven by Lauren Hernandez, courtesy the artists.
  

Top image: Crossing Threads®; Holding Patterns: Crossing Threads®; Installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, August 2020. Crossing Threads®: (Back Right): THE DIVIDE, 2020, alpaca, bamboo, canvas, cotton, cotton roping, felted Merino wool, hand cut denim, hand cut leather, hand dyed raffia, hand dyed Shibori, hemp, linen, marine roping, Merino wool, mixed natural fibres, Pima cotton; suspended off a painted Tasmanian oak wooden dowel; handwoven by Kass Hernandez. Left Wall Right: Crossing Threads, Consolation, 2020, bamboo, cotton, hand dyed Merino wool, handspun upcycled yarn, hemp, leather, linen and mixed natural fibres framed in Tasmanian oak. Handwoven by Kass Hernandez, courtesy the artists.