Exhibits,
Kate Just The Pickin’ Patch
Opening: Tuesday 29 April, 6-8pm Dates: 29 April-17 May 2003
Kate Just is an American-born Australian visual artist. Since 2002, Just has created an expansive body of visual art work in a diversity of media including knitting, resin, clay, collage and photo-media. Central to her practice is the exploration of feminist representations of the body. Just’s use of knitting across many works casts craft as a highly engaging sculptural medium, a poetic or political tool. Just has also produced a number of socially engaged projects and public works about urban community, female representation and violence against women.
In her early knitting works, Just harnessed knitting’s primarily evocation of the feminine and domestic to explore notions of gender, family and self identity. Textile crafts such as knitting are intrinsically tied to humanity in common language: we speak of social fabrics, of close-knit families and of falling apart at the seams. When anxious, we knit our brows and when our bones break, they knit themselves back together again. As a sculptural medium, knitting draws people together, entices them to touch, reminds them of childhood and breaks down physical boundaries between audience and work.