Eleanor Burkett

​

previously shown in​

earth materials 2023

unearthed 2023

cloth and clay 2024

stillness 2024

​

tell me a story 2025

​

Paper is the narrative of Eleanor’s work. It is a medium she has been fascinated with since witnessing handmade rag paper being made at Hayle Mill in Kent many years ago. This dialogue with paper in its many forms led her to Japan and the work in this exhibition draws upon the voices and wisdom of the Japanese papermakers and craftspeople past and present in two papermaking centres in North East Japan. It is where Eleanor’s journey and their stories intersect. Their strong papers and the delicate balance between fragility and strength are literally and metaphorically the warp and weft of her work. 

 

Imagine a windy road uphill to a group of houses where households have been making paper in the traditional way for centuries, strings of persimmon hanging to dry under the eaves in the autumn sun.  The rich brown of persimmon tannin applied to the paper strengthens and waterproofs paper, it makes it crisp, and Eleanor forms sculptural shapes as a result.  Browse through the narrative of ‘Washi Memories’ with an awareness of the harsh reality of papermaking in the ‘Deep North’; the passing of a way of life which has all but disappeared, but one which still inspires. 

 

‘The Deep North’ is formed from sheets of paper printed in 1964, snippets of text outlining the history of washi, kamiko, garments made from treated kneaded paper, and shifu, woven paper cloth, are visible. The paper made by the late Tadao Endo, celebrated papermaker from Shiroishi a small city in Miyagi Prefecture in North East Japan, conveys time and place. As she cuts, twists and weaves the paper Eleanor recalls Endo san speaking of myths and legends, of strips of paper conveying the secrets of jilted lovers or spies. The rhythm of the seasons, geography and paper history of an area are encapsulated within each twist of paper.

                        

The concept of indecipherable or secret text is a thread that runs through her practice. Warp and weft create a holding form for memory and meaning and for emotional and physical landscapes. Hidden within some strands of rolled paper thread are the Latin and common names of the overlooked, changing and endangered flora and fauna found in the green spaces at the city’s edge in East London where Eleanor lives and works.  East and West, traditional and contemporary, memory and meaning, nostalgia and reality. Conversations flip back and forth.  

​

​

Trained in Fine Art Textiles at Goldsmiths College, London, Eleanor first experimented with paper as an art form following a visit to Hayle Mill in Kent. She uses paper and textile techniques interchangeably and material investigation incorporates contemporary responses to paper textiles associated with the Tohoku region of North East Japan where she lived for several years. At the core of her practice is the hand-made and outcomes are process-led whether this is making paper, slashing and rolling paper ‘thread’, exploring script & mark making or weaving and shaping paper into three-dimensional form. Robust, malleable or delicate, paper in all its forms is at the heart of her practice. It provides a surface to print on and at other times takes the character of a textile, crushed, manipulated or twisted into paper thread. 

 

Through material based reflective investigations she explores the untold stories contained within fragments of the past, whether these are personal or collective memories. Layering, patching, weaving and tearing become metaphors for meaning, known or lost, or the gaps and spaces in conversations with the past. 

​

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

​

​​​​​