Like Wim Delvoye, British artist Susan Collis uses traditional craft techniques and processes (eg. marquetry and embroidery) to create seemingly mundane objects out of precious materials like diamonds, pearls, gold, and exotic wood. Meticulously working by hand, Collis stitches paint splatters on dust sheets, transforms screws and wallplugs into art objects out of precious metal.
Collis: 'I have always wanted my work to bring together two different opposing terms, like tidy and untidy, clean and dirty - to bring them together and see what happens. I think this ties into my feelings about craft. Craft in my mind, has that 'good' label and that's what draws me to it. To make something look bad, dirty or stained using these processes that are usually deemed to be good and worthy, to jumble up the two.'
Collis' trompe l'oeil work are playful takes on visual perception, the readymade, the divide between art & craft, and labour. "The Oyster's Our World" (2004) at first glance appears to be a step ladder left behind by a janitor, but on closer inspection, the paint drips and splatters are actually inlaid mother-of-pearl, coral, pearls, opal, and diamond. "Better Days" (2006) appears to be a paint drop cloth on the floor, but the splatters and drips are in fact embroidery.
As good as it gets (Detail) (2008), 18 carat white gold (hallmarked), white sapphire, turquoise, onyx
Although Collis uses precious materials in her works, she organized a team of workers for her exhibition 'SWEAT' in 2008 to craft laundry bags from large sheets of paper, painstakingly drawn with biro pens.
Links:
'Out of The Ordinary: Spectacular Craft' 2007 exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
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