Emma Neuberg presented her first large-scale installation, Drapes (11.5 x 13 x 16 feet (3.5m x 4m x 5m)), at the Mirror Gallery in Plymouth, part of the University of Plymouth in southwest England in January 2016. It was commissioned by the gallery’s curator, Hannah Rose, to launch their Textiles Season which included British designers Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons of Timorous Beasties and Kit Kemp.
Neuberg wanted to demonstrate how textiles can provoke questions of material expectation, philosophical weight and psychological meaning. Using a combination of hand-drawn and digital technologies, she demonstrated that printed textiles do not have to be commercial or trend driven. Having set up Textiles Hub London to promote these ideas, Neuberg and Rose saw this show as an opportunity to illuminate an integral part of the design and creation process (employing haptic and digital technologies) that is frequently hidden in British textiles education and art, craft and design history. This contributes to a shortfall in British design and weight when it comes to creating an enlivened and culturally significant British textiles history.
Using satin polyester as a volumetric and structural medium, Drapes conveys a sense of dominance, irrefutability and takeover in the ‘white cube’ space. Combining notions of the female gaze, vulnerability, dominance and longevity, the artist tells a story of what it is to be a young woman evolving in a patriarchal society where voice and vision are silenced.
The work’s title points to the epistemology of drapeaux, ‘draped’ and ‘draping’ and alludes to histories where flags and women are draped in order to promote and delineate cultural signs and signifiers. Drapes invites you to walk through the space in states of knowing and unknowing and feel the unfolding, wonder, repetition and propaganda.
Measuring 11.5 x 13 x 16 feet (3.5m x 4m x 5m), Drapes is divided into ten sections with each fabric unit presenting superflat color in repeating patterns and limited palettes that Neuberg designed to echo each other.
The surrounding walls presented a selection of Neuberg’s paintings in pastel and acrylic, digital animations and stitched textiles. She called these her Grid Drawings, Digital Sequences and Quilted Paintings, respectively. All these surrounding works represent the generative workings, process and reflective language of the main installation.
The Plymouth Gallery show was open to the public 10th January – 23rd February 2016.
Photo credit: Sarah Packer