Susan Moxley grew up in South Africa and came to Europe in the late 70’s to continue her studies in Fine Art.
She first visited Kythera in 1980. Over the 40 years she has been on Kythera she has collected discarded hand spun yarns and fabrics; their patinas, stains, and darned patches all contribute to a story of the island’s past austerity, when everything was valued. She found an old burlap sack, its holes repaired with fabric from a food-stained apron, which itself was darned. That sack had a functional beauty, over layered with forgotten history which inspired her to work on the textiles.
“I have made a series of stitched ‘paintings’ with these retrieved fabrics. The textured artworks have a fragility. I use the same methods of stitch and repair, which I found on the fabrics, I am re-contextualising and carrying the old narratives into the present, always being aware and respectful of the women who worked them.”
‘Letters from an island‘ is a Series of encaustic, graphite and collaged ‘paintings’ incorporating discarded fragments of paper and letters from the island. As in the textile pieces each a palimpsest of layers of history and stories.
In both works she questions the notion of value from functionality to discard to artwork.
