Varnishing Day - Royal Academy 2014

It’s an enormous privilege to be exhibiting amongst established artists and Royal Academicians. Eileen Cooper, Keeper of The Royal Academy selected the portrait from 12,000 submissions. The work is hung on the east wall of the Large Weston Room, which is dominated by portraiture.

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Royal Academy Summer Exhibition selected 2014

New portrait selected from 12,000 submissions for The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2014.

Brow, cheek, nose, jaw, ear, lips, neck is a portrait of Jane, a Leicestershire dairy farmer with 130 milking cows in her herd. The image is created by pinning thousands of garment labels onto canvas to reflect facial anatomy and the patterns produced by hair and clothing. Jane has evolved from a process of assembling 30,000 used labels, and questions the idea of branding by literally describing specific facial features. The navy blue background label is woven with the words, ‘part of a two piece set’, and refers to a second portrait of an Ayrshire calf reared by Jane on the farm.

Solo Exhibition 2014

This first solo exhibition will include work from the 2008 - 2013 collection. 20,000 used clothing labels have been gathered and assembled, with larger pieces taking two to three years to complete. 5000 labels are processed for each piece according to colour and brand and arranged on canvas using only dressmaking pins.

Exhibition at: The King George Gallery, Ormiston Ilkeston Enterprise Academy, King George Avenue, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, DE7 5HS.

Exhibition runs from 8th September - 10th October 2014. 

With special thanks to Save the Children, Ilkeston.