Tipperary artist prepares for graduate exhibitio

Contemporary art textiles

Tipperary artist, Marjan Vos, who has recently completed a Special Purpose Award in Contemporary Art Textiles at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork, will be exhibiting her work in a group graduate exhibition in Cork City next month.

Ariadne’s Thread will open at the MTU Gallery at 46 Grand Parade in Cork City at 6pm on Tuesday 4th June and will run from 11am-4pm each weekday until Wednesday 12th June.

It will showcase textiles pieces by Marjan and nine other artists who have recently completed their studies. The other exhibiting artists are Patsy Atkinson, Sarah Buckley, Theresa Connolly, Doreen Fitzmaurice, Mary Foster, Claudia Hernandez-Espinosa, Laurie Manning, Kay Roche and Áine Sealy.

Ariadne’s Thread takes its title from Greek mythology. Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, is associated with problem-solving skills, ingenuity and creativity. When Theseus went to slay the Minotaur, she helped him to escape the labyrinth by giving him a ball of red thread.

At the heart of this Greek myth lies a metaphor relating to finding our way through the maze of the creative process – something the ten female exhibitors can relate to well. Each showed great intuition, creativity and clever problem-solving skills as they worked through their research and creative challenges over the past two years to culminate in the creation of this body of work.

Their work explores a broad range of complex themes such as loss, memory, family history, nature, connection, conflict and exploitation.

Using diverse techniques, materials and processes, the wall-hung and sculptural works include weave, crochet, stitch, felting, print, natural materials and natural dyes.

Marjan, who is originally from The Netherlands but lives in Cahir, Co Tipperary, explores her love and connection to nature in her work and the importance of taking a sustainable approach.

In her sculptural, wall-mounted piece, ‘Tree with a message’, she used recycled materials, such as donated yarn and other recycled materials that she had in hand to make it. She wove plastic into the piece to highlight plastic pollution and she incorporated words into it such as “Protect”, “Reuse” “Reduce” and “Salvage” so that it is a tree with an important message - that we can all play our part in reducing our carbon footprint.