Lisa Walker is exhibiting about 25 hand-stitched pieces based on the human head — somewhere between a face and an object — at Te Atamira later this month at the invitation of its director, Ruth Heath.
‘‘I came up with this very, very simple thing of a head below your head or a face below your face,’’ Wellington-based Walker, whose exhibition is entitled ‘‘Head’’, said.
She has gone through several phases in her 38-year career, ‘‘and then the last probably three, four years, I’ve pretty much focused on softer materials, so fabric, stitching, embroidery, acrylic paint on fabric and semi-precious beads’’.
Each piece took about six weeks to make, she says.
As to how viewers should respond, ‘‘they don’t even have to have words; I’m happy if they’re just touched, because it’s a powerful kind of experience’’.
‘‘They won’t see jewellery like this maybe ever again.’’
Walker, who spent 15 years studying and living in Munich, Germany, returning in 2009, the year she won the world’s leading jewellery award, first came to Queenstown about a year ago for a friend’s wedding — despite spending three years in the late ’80s at Dunedin’s Otago Polytechnic Art School.
‘‘It blew my mind, actually, those mountains.’’
Now she will not only be coming here to install the pieces and help paint the backdrops — her son Max has made ‘‘beautiful’’ silver hooks for each piece — but but will return for an artist talk and workshop on August 8.
‘‘It feels incredibly special to be bringing Lisa Walker’s work to Te Atamira’’, Ms Heath said.
‘‘Lisa is internationally celebrated for her bold, playful and highly intricate adornment practice, and this exhibition offers our community the opportunity to experience work of exceptional calibre right here in Queenstown.’’
Presented in partnership with Christchurch contemporary jewellery gallery The National, the free exhibition will run from June 25 to August 12.
All works will be available for purchase.
