Rachelle Gardner-Roe

Artist Statement
 

I am focused on non-traditional approaches to lacework and textiles — literally, figuratively and sculpturally. This subject has become a means of recontextualizing “women’s work” through blending historical craft and the generational passing down of knowledge with contemporary practice.
 

Lace has also become a metaphor for the human condition, in that countless individual threads are intertwined to create interdependent networks with the nuance of  connection shaping endless possibilities of pattern. This method can perhaps be seen in everything from the neuronic mapping of the brain to the largest structure in the observable universe,  galactic superclusters.
 

The human scale is the most relevant to my practice, however, and memory, with all its defining power and inescapable flaws, plays an important role.  My interest in the exploration of consciousness and perception also often comes into play. Both my rural Missouri roots and a degree in Interior Architecture influence my research and exploratory processes, resulting in intricate textile drawings, as well as dynamic sculpture and works on paper of layered lace-like text.