Eleanor Burkett

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Previously shown in

Earth materials 2023

Unearthed 2023

Cloth and clay 2024

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Stillness 2024

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Eleanor’s work is best understood as a contemporary response to paper textiles associated with the Tohoku region of North East Japan where she was based, a place to which she returned to study how to make thread, kamiito and learn more about woven paper, shifu. She uses paper and textile techniques interchangeably and in recent years has built up a body of work which uses ‘broke’, waste from the printing process, and which repurposes paper which would otherwise have been thrown away.

 

In the writing of ‘Washi Memories’, a book about papermakers from this area which was hand printed by The Old School Press, she rescued waste sheets of a poem entitled ‘Punting to Islip’.  Written by Eddie Flintoff, and printed at the press in 1994 on Japanese kozo paper, the layout of this narrative poem mimics the quiet flow of this meandering river. The poetry of the printed word takes on a new form as the paper is slashed, rubbed and rolled into thread. 

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Eleanor responds to and preserves historic processes which see paper as a textile, as both a cloth and thread. New pieces interweave printed script with handmade paper thread to form contemplative woven drawings. 

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Click images for details and if you are interested in any of Eleanor Burkett's work please enquire below.

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