Eleanor Burkett

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Earth materials 2023

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Handmade Japanese paper, washi, speaks of the rhythms of the seasons and the heritage of an area.; it is formed through a combination of natural factors and bears the imprint of years of making.  It contains the skills, character and feelings of an individual papermaker to which Eleanor adds her own contemporary response.

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Making paper thread is a mesmerising technique which preserves a 400 year old paper-textile tradition from Took, North East Japan and is made possible because of the strong fibres of Kozo, paper mulberry, from which this paper has been made.  In the series, Lost Pages, stories of secret messages conveyed by ninja, hidden script, lost words and the whisper of an endangered material practice are contained within the slow stitching and meditative practice.

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Eleanor works exclusively with strong paper

from the village of Kamikawasaki close to where she lived in Fukushima province.  It is an area with a thousand year history of paper making now on the brink of extinction and her work celebrates the local kozo fibres from which washi is made. The shadow of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 2011 is referenced in her series of vessels, added to every year.

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Material investigations, which often use textile processes, explore notions of fragility and strength and our relationship to the natural world. Twists of paper symbolise memory and meaning and are formed from paper-textile processes which Eleanor endeavours to preserve. 

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Closer to home, fragments of paper and script log the abundant but overlooked flora and fauna at the city edge in East London where she now lives.