Open Skies: Moving Out

Open Skies: Moving Out, Clementine Belle McIntosh, Fay Skyring Textile Works Gallery at Canberra Spinners and Weavers

27.06.2023 – 27.07.2023

Open Skies: Moving Out uses circular and place-based art making techniques to produce a series of textile assemblages. Artist Clementine Belle McIntosh takes familiar outdoor canvas/textile objects (swags, awnings and tents) to consider her own relationship to rural “Australia” as a descendant of colonial/convict heritage.

Site-specific materials gathered as gifts from loved ones, waste and/or found objects constitute the textiles bodies, reflecting the artist’s lived rural experience. The process of dyeing, sewing and collecting cloth, became a meditative exercise as McIntosh considered her associations to each item and their stored histories. 

The exhibition draws closely from a recent camping trip taken by the artist across Wiradjuri (Gilgandra NSW), Barkindji (Wilcannia NSW), Barindji (Lake Mungo NSW), Yarrikaluk (Lascelles VIC), Taungurong (Tooborac VIC), Bunurong (Wonthaggi VIC), Bidawal, Gunaikurnai and Nindi-Ngudjam Ngarigu Monero (Cape Conran VIC) and Yuin (Devils Hole NSW and Mimosa National Park NSW) country. During this time, interactions with the nonhuman environment were influenced by a swag, awning and tent. These objects acted as a porous skin, protecting and bridging the artist to familiar and unfamiliar places.

  • Swag (2023), Pa’s old gill fishing net, secondhand quilting fabrics from Cooee Village, iron bark and red firewood dye, iron water and thread on Paint ‘n’ Plus old painters drop sheet
  • A road trip out west, down south then up the coast (2023), Will’s old surfboard leg rope, found chainsaw teeth, Indigo’s elastic band and fabric dyed in an O’Connor puddle
  • Tent (2023), Found camping rope, found tent peg, bonfire charcoal on eucalyptus dyed fabric, burnt beer can found in bonfire, ocean plastic found on Gillards Beach NSW, Bird feather from Devils Hole Rd and metal scrap from Kalyanka Station
  • Awning (2023), Eucalyptus dye, thread and iron water on gifted painters drop sheet, quilting fabric from Cooee Village and studio fabric scraps.
  • Campsite on Yuin country / Gillards Beach NSW. May 2023
  • Dyed eucalyptus cloth on brick pavement before using a frottage technique with burnt charcoal from a fire pit out of frame. Ngunnawal country / Canberra ACT. April 2023
  • Laid out gill net owned by my late grandfather and now illegal to use in NSW. I laid this net out in several locations where it collected ground cover including Taungurong country / Tooborac VIC (pictured), Bunurong country / Wonthaggi VIC, Wiradjuri, Wailwan and Kamilaroi country / Gilgandra NSW and Ngunnawal country / Canberra ACT. May 2023
  • The work “Swag” rolled up for transport to Ngunnawal country / Canberra ACT. June 2023
  • A rolled up piece of cloth with eucalyptus leaves given to me by my housemate. This bundle of cloth soaked in a puddle outside my Canberra house for approximately two months on Ngunnawal country. March-April 2023