Notations – On Textile

Exhibition Statement

Notations – On Textile brings together seven artists working with forms of notation in response to a textile of their choice. The work distilling and re-working material from art, family and cultural history, utilising drawing, weaving, thread and pattern.

The exhibition presents the work of seven artists who explore forms of notation across a range of materials and practices. Collectively, they draw on an engagement with textiles across generations and cultures as social, conceptual and material threads.

Artists: Pia Larsen, Margaret Roberts, Jacqueline Rose, Hannah McKellar, Stuart Bailey, Belle Blau, Lisa Pang. Curated by Pia Larsen

Artist Statement

Delving into her family history and genealogy, Hannah uncovered a distant connection to Florence Broadhurst. Florence is Hannah’s great-grand-aunt on her Mother’s side.

While Broadhurst is often remembered for her sensational and tragic death, she was equally defined by her flamboyance and relentless self-invention, crafting and recrafting her identity across continents and decades. Florence projected an extravagant lifestyle whilst concealing her rural upbringing and source of income from a trucking company. Her bold wallpaper and textile designs capture her lavish and dramatic personality.

In this exhibition, Hannah responds to Broadhurst’s iconic design, The Cranes (in gold), which was widely reproduced across wallpapers and textiles. Hannah first saw this design whilst visiting a friend's new home. It was just by chance that a room in this house was wall-to-wall covered in this original Broadhurst wallpaper. An entirely golden room. It was a moment where Hannah could feel her late relatives' vivacity, and was in awe of their energy and extravagance.

McKellar stages a theatrical installation in which draped gold fabric partially conceals hand-embroidered artworks, accompanied by a hand-embroidered “scrap” of wallpaper. Here, gold underscores the spectacle of Broadhurst’s persona, invoking the illusion of wealth, theatricality, and power.

Behind this shimmering façade, the artworks and fragments emerge: aged, torn, hidden or seemingly discarded. It gestures toward a quieter, more vulnerable reality beneath the surface. The two embroideries hidden underneath and behind the draped gold fabric are McKellar’s earlier series, Shields. Diary entries, mind maps, and poems are translated into tactile, hand-stitched forms that resemble protective emblems. Created as a cathartic process, each shield functions as a portal to a formative moment in the artist’s life. Concealing these works, plays with the idea of embedded secret texts and lives.