Life Threads

Wendy Tilley

Exhibition Dates:
Tuesday 4th August – Friday 28th August, 2026
Monday to Friday: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Weekends: to be announced

Opening Event:
Thursday 13th August, 5:00pm – 7:00pm, 2026

An unexpected entangled assemblage of suspended raw clay threads, that descend from the rafters catching botanical motifs and remnants of histories, before finally returning to its previous state.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Suspended festoons and vertical drops of clay thread descend from the rafters, catching botanical forms that emerge with improbable equipoise, while dusty flakes of clay litter the floor. Life Threads is a monumental work that organically fills the galley space enabling thoroughfare as well as a sense of enclosure and comfort. Gravity and weightlessness empower an entangled exploration, highlighting the fragility of life, and the beauty of death, decay, and renewal.

The 10-day installation process was physically demanding. Walking down to the gallery each day I endeavored to create distance from my usual life, practicing mindfulness, noticing the quiet inherent beauty of my community. Either side of Warwick Street the pink plum blossom explodes, announcing spring while in the confines of the interior sandstone gallery space, the retained cold of winter exudes from the walls entering my body and that of the clay. Up and down the ladder balancing and reaching precariously while delicately manipulating, requires physical endurance and care. The work emerges through the repetition and rituals of making and thinking. Slowly enclosing the string threads in clay and enacting the unexpected botanical forms, pressing, enfolding, and persuading. I remember the past and make to the future through the language of flowers.

Making is a way of thinking and this slow ritual enables growth and dialogue. The time taken inspires conversations that twist and flow to consider fragility of life, connection, and renewal. Threads become cords and entangle again to entwine and interlace into strands. Leaves become petals and flowers morph into seeds. Strings twist and dry clay fractures and falls. Some thoughts recur and condense while others trail and expand. The material nature of this raw clay sculpture is an important component and allows the work to evolve, it is not fixed and the assemblage grows organically of its own accord. Shadows blur and leap, while intrepid conversations promote movement and balance.

Our perception of beauty and desire to cling to stability and preservation, is confronted by a single bucket that sits waiting. At the conclusion of the exhibition the strings of clay will be dissolved into water returning the material to its previous state. This process of deliquesce will be surprisingly quick, contrasting the long days it took to construct the work. The clay will pop and fizz slightly as it dissolves, leaving shapes of memory.

Like the plants in my garden our lives are finite and the time we have left is diminishing. This ephemeral raw clay installation rubs against the grain. It highlights impermanence and encourages thought and articulation on how we approach our own mortality and communicate this to those close.