Sonin, Ramona (USA) - 'Brought the Garden In'

Ramona is a Professor of Fashion Design and Illustration based in Memphis USA. She also works as a costume designer, stylist and consultant for film and television. Her works have been exhibited widely in exhibitions and fashion shows. Somehow, she also finds the time to undertake private commissions and lecture at the University of Memphis!

‘My couture pieces come from an artful, floatful place of upcycled steam pinks and greyed lavenders creating an edgy softness, a floral armour…’

While delicate and tender in palette, Ramona Sonin imbues her designs with the armoured feminine – both formally and materially. Brought the Garden In took around 300 hours to shred, stitch together, make every individual flower and then paint. Like the artist herself, the work is bewitched, an ethereal crusade: steam pink and unearth bound. 

The dress is constructed of a base of shredded pieces of Japanese Ogura Lace Paper stitched together for the structure garment. It is embellished with 100’s of flowers created from the tearing of coffee filters into petals and shaped and moulded into flowers that were then painted and placed on the structure dress with Liquid Stitch. 

Ramona says that the work ‘…definitely ‘brought the garden in’ to the studio and brightened up the winter months while bringing her to life and tapping into my inner mother nature. Fun fact is that the dress was inspired by a frothy and lavender drink at a local bar called the Cloud Nine. And oh yeah, my husband went without coffee some mornings!’

Materials: Dress: shredded pieces of Japanese Ogura Lace Paper. Flowers: coffee filters teared into petals, shaped and moulded into flowers, painted, attached to dress with Liquid Stitch.

Ramona’s WEBSITE

Silk, M & Stanford, S (AUS) - ‘Dyadic, generally’

Dr. Sue-Ann Stanford and Dr. Melissa Silk work collaboratively at JMC Academy to provide innovative learning to students keen to forge a path in creative industries. They are both educators and artists. Sue-Ann Stanford is Dean of Quality and Melissa Silk is the National Head of Design. Both are widely published in their academic fields

Each have art/design practices related to traditional drawing and mathematical paper folding consecutively. ‘In this piece we are experimenting with the manipulation of a drawn image of a baby inside a womb. We are interested in the expansion characteristics of a glide-reflection folding pattern in which a flat sheet can be transformed into a three-dimensional curved surface’ – extract from Design Statement.

In this representation of a generally dyadic circumstance, the pregnant find themselves unequivocally on show, with no real way of detaching from the bubble. Nelson (2015) in The Argonauts, feels no urge to extricate herself from this bubble, but rather tries to understand the antenatal world through Sloterdijk’s (2011) ‘rule of negative gynaecology’. Nelson (2015) applauds Sloterdijk’s encouragement of insightful intimate connections through which “outside observation is already the fundamental mistake” (p.321). In this piece, we do as Nelson urges: “we turn away from mastery and toward the immersive bubble of blood, amniotic fluid, voice, sonic bubble and breath” (p.45). – extract from Artist’s Statement.

References

Nelson, M., 2015, The Argonauts, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne

Sloterdijk, P., 2011, Bubbles: Spheres I - Microspherology 1, Semiotexte, Los Angeles

Materials: Paper, pastel pigment, digital printing, and glue.

WEBSITE: https://steampop.zone/index.html

Tica, Antoaneta (ROM) - 'Over the Rainbow'

Antoaneta Tica is a Lecturer in the Fashion Department at the National University of Arts, Bucharest. She creates mainly by transforming various recycled materials (plastic, paper, textiles), otherwise discarded in the field. Her artworks always depict life forms or they refer to vital concepts. She draws attention to these kinds of issues not only through the approached topics, but also through the mediums which she chooses to work with.

This is Antoaneta’s second experience as a finalist in Paper on Skin. In 2020, however, her work sadly did not make it to Tasmania due to COVID-related freight shut-downs in Romania. That work, Let them Be(e)!, presented a strong environmental message, as does this year’s impressive Over the Rainbow.

For Over the Rainbow, the topic is concrete. Concrete has been used since Roman times and is now one of the main sources of greenhouse gases. ‘Eventually,’ Antoaneta says, ‘the whole living world will be affected… our blue-green planet will turn steadily into a dull surface…’

Antoaneta describes the work as a dress inspired by Roman armour made of many pieces in grey papier mâché, and an underdress with coloured applications made of paper, that will come out through the breaches between the “concrete” pieces. The whole aesthetic will be based on the contradiction between the precisely constructed concrete dress, with a dull lifeless grey chromatic, and the cheerful underdress with naturally “grown” vegetation.

Materials: Egg cartons, advertising magazines, copper core for helmet’s threads, fishing line core for cloak threads.

Antoaneta on INSTAGRAM

Toose, Kirry (AUS) - 'Life unfurled…'

Kirry Toose is a fibre artist who describes her art practice as ‘…both traditional and intuitive, often a personal response to a subject matter or theme. Creating art using the human form as a canvas is my trademark with all its ensuing challenges both in design and technical abilities, defines me’.

Kirry is a founder and convenor of untethered fibre artists Inc., driven passionately to assert textiles as an art form in the contemporary art field. Her longstanding educational and practical undertaking in art wear, and subsequent installation work are optimistic in their intent and essence, towards destructing the perceived barriers of fibre and using the body as a display.

She works with a variety of processes from traditional pattern making techniques, screen printing, and collage to new technologies in machine embroidery and digital media. Working at the intersection of art and design, her garments are often a reflection of a singular changing theme that speaks to the female ideology.

Of her Paper on Skin journey, Kirry says: ‘I like to believe I am the ‘imagineer’, in having the ability to implement ideas, with the added limitation of the practicality of being showcased on the body… The challenge in creating for Paper on Skin ‘threw down’ this gauntlet, with unseen discoveries being made through the exploration in the practicalities of creating a durable, wearable and somewhat practical garment has/is a thrilling dare!

Life unfurled… is inspired by an Edward de Bono quote: ‘A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.’ 

Kirry says: ‘One’s life is based on human connectivity, informed by time, family, friends and environment. Each of us has a story to tell, a story to cherish, our stories and memories are what make us human, gives us purpose and intent. The intent was to acknowledge the complexity and the hidden in one’s life narrative. 

The multi layering of Kozo is representative of a life, the lost and the found, the meaningful language, sheets of ‘paper’ floating at whim, on a breeze.... the palimpsest of life. The garment is asymmetrical, heavily boned to keep the silhouette to underpin the disjointed and deconstructed paper layers, yet visually subtle in its tonal content, creating a hidden intricacy, a life story.’

Materials: Kozo/mulberry paper, vintage dictionary pages, packing cardstock. Unbleached calico, silk organza, synthetic boning, memory wire. Machine digitised, appliqué, handstitched, screen printed, hand painted.

Kirry on INSTAGRAM

Townsend, Chloe (AUS) - 'Coral'

Chloe Townsend is an emerging artist from the North-West Coast of Tasmania and this is her second time as a finalist in Paper on Skin. Chloe loves to ‘make’ and believes that the tactile nature of sculpting, painting and stitching is the most enjoyable part of the creative process. She usually works from a sketch, then tests out ideas and materials. The concept is always in the back of her mind as Chloe works to make components and then see how they come together. Chloe was new to making handmade paper, so Coral was an ambitious project fuelled by her energetic creative passion and love of experimentation. 

In describing the work, Chloe says: ‘Coral is a joyful response to the beauty found in the Great Barrier Reef. Listed as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, this site is enormous (2300 km in length), yet it is in the detail of each living organism that we see individual colours, shapes and delicate structures. These are the inspiration for my garment. Using handmade and reused papers to emulate and elevate the coral and draw attention to its beauty. An important concept to highlight in this garment is the recycling of paper, with a large portion of the reef under threat due to human activity and subsequent climate change.’ 

Materials: Handmade paper, glue, fastenings.

Chloe on INSTAGRAM

Vo, Donna (AUS) - 'The heat is in our hands'

HIGHLY COMMENDED

This is Donna’s third time as a finalist in Paper on Skin. In 2016 Donna opened our show with the striking Armadillo, and in 2020 she was awarded the Awagami Paper Award for The Shedding. The Shedding is a powerful meditation on the various phases of a woman’s life.

With The heat is in our hands, Donna has shifted her focus to an environmental theme:

‘I have visually represented the process of coral bleaching and expressed a cry for help in order to raise awareness and encourage discussion. We as humans can make small changes in decreasing our greenhouse emissions to slow down the effects of global warming and help the survival of our reefs.

The piece is a full body suit to shine a light - that this is a human issue.  We as humans hold the power to help curb global warming by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which, in turn may reduce the rising water temperatures and help slow down the effect of coral bleaching.’ From Artist’s Statement (edited).

Donna has three small children, so finding the time to work on her labour-intensive pieces is a Olympic-worthy achievement. Regarding the making, Donna says: ‘The process of meditative hand weaving produced the body suit. As the suit was growing into its form, it was no way perfectly structured and tightly weaved. My weaving was affected by my surroundings, time of day or night and limitations of time.

The growth of the organically weaved suit was to be a pure reflection of how the corals react and change due to the environment.

With no perfection in mind or set in stone plan, the body suit grew organically. 2 holes on each side of the waist and the two holes on the navel, organically became the main functionality feature to fasten my garment on the model.

The two holes at the front simultaneously became paramount in the design, to represent the emerging bleached coral stems emerging from the human form.’

Materials: 1000 metres Raw paper raffia, 25 metres raw paper raffia, braided ribbon, 60 metres white paper raffia, 65 paper straws, masking tape, spray paint

Donna on INSTAGRAM

Making Of clip #1

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Making of clip #5

Artist Statement

Voorpostel, Derek (AUS) - 'In Honour Of Musashi (Ceremonial)'

WINNER: Tasmanian Hearing and Implant Centre – Dr Kellie Walker’s Encouragement Award – for recognition of talent and to encourage pursuit of the artform $1000.

Derek has an Associate Diploma in Fine Art, Textiles, Fibre Art and Jewellery Making from the University of Tasmania. His major disciplines are Batik and Shibori.

For four months in 2002, Derek was an Artist in Residence at the Bramah Tirta Sari Studio in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, where he studied traditional and contemporary Batik art.

This complex garment, involving months of painstaking work, is best explained by the artist himself: ‘I respectfully create my own stories of modern mythology. This ceremonial kimono represents strength. I use hexagons in reference to strength as the hexagon is the strongest natural structure known to man’.

‘The idea of this garment is to marry building construction methods with batik repeats, in Japanese dress code, giving rise to paper’.

‘Paper on Skin is a perfect opportunity to further practice fibre arts in a three-dimensional form. I am relishing the creative process of finding ways to deconstruct paper to mould and fashion for fabric, where I can incorporate repeat patterns.’ 

95% of the paper used is recycled from Derek’s recent storage and removal packaging after he relocated from Sydney to Launceston. The embossed paper comes from "CAPS" which are Indonesian repeat printing stamps for Batik.

Materials: Recycled butcher paper, tissue, newsprint, brown paper shopping bags. Recycled cardboard was used for the Geta. Paper twine. Rice paper. PVA glue. 6x3mm, nickel plated bolts.14 mm g4 brass screws.

Wettstein, Robert (CHE) - 'Hémd'

The word hémd is the pronunciation of the German word Hemd and means shirt.

Hémd is a play between a comic drawing and a colour pattern. A play with fiction and reality. A sketch becomes a wearable pattern. It is almost an armour made of paper that can be worn on the skin. The movements of the person wearing the dress are more upright and conscious than usual. The dress becomes a message and can be reminiscent of advertisers (Sandwich people).

The person wearing this suit is confident and draws the viewer's eye to the dress. The person becomes a living sculpture in the room.

Robert A Wettstein works in product design, lighting design and furniture. ‘My work is therefore related to space and involves other artistic techniques, such as photography and painting. I work as a lecturer and mentor at the Zurich University of the Arts.’

Materials: Photo background paper with high strength, paper thickness: approx. 145 g/m² white, acid-free. (Manufacturer Walimex). Colours used: Water-based acrylic paint. Black & neon pink.

Robert’s WEBSITE

ARTIST’S INTRODUCTION CLIP

Wheeler, Barbara (NZ) - 'Wrapped'

Based in Wellington, New Zealand, Barbara Wheeler is an Australian artist working with natural fibres and fabrics, botanic prints and dyes in a practice that spans clothing design, stitching, basketry and fabric piecing.

Barbara founded her clothing label ‘every thread counts’ in 2016 to raise awareness of the environmental and social impacts of global fast fashion and to promote the wearability of natural fibres. 

Barbara engages the viewer through the mediums of textiles and fibres to explore the challenges the world faces, employing craftswomanship as a quiet disruption to catalyse change. Her artworks prompt us to examine materiality, our over consumption of ‘stuff’ and waste of precious, finite resources, and to rethink our connection to planet earth. 

Wrapped is a coiled basket gown that utilises a recycled, sustainable paper product. Barbara has made a wearable paper basket.

Constructed from the bottom up, Barbara applied a simple basketry technique of coiling a 14 ply weaver (14 strands) of paper twine, secured by knotted paper twine stakes that travel up the garment.  The rigid basketry technique was abandoned at the neckline in an eruption of chaos that almost secures the materials.  

‘It commenced as a quirky exercise investigating the properties of baskets to create an integrated fabric for a garment.  During the making, and whilst working with her model, Wrapped grew into a work that encourages a playful masculinity’. (Edited from Artist’s Statement).

Materials: 2350m of paper twine, produced in Japan from recycled milk cartons. 

The Making of Wrapped - combined edit

Making of Video #1

Making of Video #2

Making of Video #3

Making of Video #4

Making of Video #5 - Meet Barbara’s model and learn of his connection to lutruwita Tasmania

Making of Video #6

Making of Video #7

Making of Video #8

every thread counts WEBSITE

Williams, Tony (USA) - 'AYA'

Tony Williams (USA) was a finalist in Paper on Skin in both 2018 (two works) and 2020 (three works). He has exhibited extensively and undertaken numerous artistic residences.

AYA (pronounced as “eye–ah”) is part of adinkra—visual symbols linked to the (former) Gyaman kingdom (Côte d'Ivoire) and Ashanti culture (Ghana). The word Aya is derived from the Twi language, and is translated to “fern”. Aya is a symbol of endurance, resourcefulness, and defiance against oppression.

Spiritual meaning: In African legend, a love of cowrie shells shows that you could be family to an ocean spirit of wealth and earth. It also represents the Goddess of protection in the ocean. In Africa, and in the Americas, the cowrie symbolized destiny and prosperity. Also thought of as the mouth of Orisha, and believed to have taught stories of humility and respect.

AYA has a resourcefulness, and an adorned defiance against oppression. A copper wire corset with casted paper cowrie shells will complete the look.

Materials: Copper paper from Awagami Factory, hand casted paper cowrie shells.

Tony Williams WEBSITE

MAKING OF CLIP

MAKING OF images - supplied by artist