Bea Underwood

In my practice I am considering the values of textiles and the objects with which they are most associated. The intimacy, tactility and corporeality of fabric as a material interests me in its ability to act as both body and skin: the relationship between surface and form.

As seems inevitable in working with such a diverse material – my work is informed by a range of lines of enquiry. Some works use the language of furniture; objects ostensibly without function but with familiar upholstered or structural qualities. Others are more reminiscent of clothing – almost wearable, but not quite. Sometimes textiles act as paper, forming pages or books. Even works that do not incorporate textile tend to reference its qualities or functions.

In tandem with this material concern is an interest in the aspects of my childhood preoccupations that reoccur in my practice. Forms of containment: pockets, cups, boxes, pots. Mapping of spaces: rudimentary floorplans of bedrooms, rebuilding spaces in miniature. Making ‘clothes’ for objects. Mixing powders into pastes and doughs, for the sake of experiencing the transformation.  

My work seeks to bring together these elements in both objects and installations that offer familiarity and strangeness, solidity and softness, and that occupy a kind of liminal space.