Collections
Medicate

Silence by Lyndall Phelps

Lyndall Phelps describes her art as "exploring notions of loss, fragility, silence, control and healing utilising both social and personal histories." Silence is part of a body of work on the relationships between surgical craft, women's needlecraft and needlework made by women prisoners as a form of hard labour. The history of medicine has been a male dominated area, particularly within the surgical field, whereas needlecraft has been largely considered a feminine pursuit. Both practitioners employ a needle and thread, relying on the repetition of a single stitch in order to complete their task. However, the gentle art of stitching lace and cotton bares little resemblance to the stitching of flesh and tissue. As the title suggests, this work speaks about silence. The masks are symbols for breathing in, breathing out; consciousness; loss of consciousness and; ultimately life and death. The gentle inhalation and exhalation of breath being visible only when the mask is worn. Masks also imply someone placing their hand over your mouth, silencing and controlling it.

Silence by Lyndall Phelps © Lyndall Phelps, photography by Gary Kirkham

For Phelps the physical act of making the work is highly significant. Silence is hand knitted and crocheted. This was extremely labour intensive, taking about two weeks to make each mask. This painstaking process partially emulated the experience of women in prisons and women's needlecraft during the 19th and early 20th centuries. She finds the knitting completely absorbing, almost meditative and only notices time passing when her hands become sore and fingers cramp. The four colours are linked to those used by Johnson & Johnson for their disposable surgical masks. Rather appropriately the word surgery is derived from the Greek, Kheirourgia, for handiwork.

The installation, repetition and colour scheme reference formalist abstraction and minimalism, however there are as many contradictions as similarities. Repetition is also a key factor in the finished installations, which are frequently made up of multiple components.

Lyndall Phelps (born in 1958 in Australia) Phelps studied in Fine Art at the University of South Wales, Sydney. She has undertaken residencies at IMMA in Dublin and the Australia Council International Residency in London. Her work has been shown in a number of exhibitions in Australia and Britain, including Tempered Ground at the Museum of Garden History in London, Inheritance at the Scape Gallery and Gathering at the Side on Gallery in Sydney.  Her work is represented in private collections in Britain, Europe and Australia.

This work was purchased with support from The Wellcome Trust.

1+1=1 by Jordan Baseman
Set Conversation Piece  by Christine Borland
The Last Supper by Damien Hirst
Dying is Not Good For You by Jason Oddy
Silence by Lyndall Phelps
“I” by Alexa Wright
Sick Sticks by Laura Glassar
Garden by Tania Kovats
Inhaler and Crack Bottles by Keith Coventry
Catherine Long by Marc Quinn