Red Riding Hood - Needles & Pins series
By Vivienne Beaumont
Textile machine embroidery on patchwork or printed ground
Original artworks
Framed
Framed sizes are between H: 50-70cm x W: 55-63cm
Prices - £495 - £645 each
The ephemeral and cyclical nature of life is at the core of Vivienne’s textile practice. Her work references the figurative, the mythological, fairy tales, nature and female archetypes. She uses machine embroidery and print to tell personal and universal stories, with a huge dose of imagination and technical brilliance in both compostion and assembly.
To an extraordinary degree, she manages to 'paint in textile', conveying personality and emotion in expressions and gestures.
The Red Riding Hood folk tale, rich in symbolism, is a recurring theme for Vivienne:
"It's a rite of passage. The young girl is growing up, her mother is letting her daughter go on her own into the woods, but she strays off the path, distracted by the wild flowers. She must choose the path of pins or the path of needles, the symbols of female initiation.
"The narrative of the tale alludes to the loss of her virginity and the spilling of blood. Red Riding Hood carries a precious vial of wine, blood red - effervescing with life force. The edge of the wood, is the betwixt and between, the liminal, the passage from child to woman.
"The wolf traditionally plays the role of the sexual predator, but I portray the wolf as a totem, the powerful feminine and protector. The threat is instead in the unknown and the darkness."
ABOUT VIVIENNE BEAUMONT
Vivienne's extraordinary textile work is shaped by stories and symbols. She takes inspiration from ancient myths, fairy tales and nature, from female archetypes and the process of transformation – growing up and growing old. Rites of passage, risks and vulnerabilities pepper her narratives.
Based on concepts she first developed during her MA, her visual stories are ripe with seeds, pomegranates and scenes of harvest and fertility. Textile pictures feature goddesses and their ability to relate to other people and other creatures.
Feminists might easily find an affinity with her work – and so might anyone looking for hidden meanings and intriguing imagery drawn from centuries of story-telling and emotional experience.
She starts with sketches and a drawing, transforming the design onto fabric in paint or by mono-printing. Using machine embroidery, print and collaged textile elements, she works with threads as other artists do with paint – blending, composing and layering. The results are visually stunning, as well as tactile.
“I try to capture something something of the folk tale or fairy tale: the jeopardy of the miller’s daughter, the alchemy of weaving straw into gold. These tales have endured the ages, suggesting they hold a deeper meaning for us. ...Mothers and daughters, love and rites of passage – the repeated cycles from one generation to the next – these loom large in my textile story.”
A former student of Fine Art in Cardiff and awarded a medal of Excellence from City & Guilds, Vivienne is a retired teacher based in Shropshire. We are honoured to be one of the first galleries to select and show her work.