Sue Lawty

'I seek an understated restraint, balance, tension, rhythm: an essential stillness.

The work is rooted in an emotional, spiritual and physical engagement with the land, drawing on direct experiences of remote, raw, edgy landscape and specifically rock. It has been described as 'meditative… a deeply contemplative experience'

Constructed pieces and drawings in two and three dimensions are abstract and minimal. They explore repetition and interval; investigating territories of expression in raphia, hemp, linen, lead, stone or shadow.

-- Sue Lawty
 

'…Lawty is developing links between contemporary use of unconventional materials and traditional practice… Cultural and personal narrative is concerned with the substance of things, the nature of cloth; it's structure and feel. She is exploring ideas of individuality and universality, a single thread within a piece of cloth, or a single stone on a beach made of millions of stones. The mapping of place and space, the structure of the landscape, the sense of time…'

Professor Lesley Millar

Selected collections and exhibition venues:

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England (Concealed-Discovered-Re-vealed, solo exhibition, permanent collection); Bankfield Gallery and Museum, Halifax (Rock-Raffia-Linen-Lead, solo exhibition, permanent collection); Central Museum, of Textiles, ?ódz´, Poland (International Triennial of Tapestry); Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery, Suffolk England (Arttextiles I and 2, traveling exhibitions); the Barbican Centre, London, England (Woven Image: British Contemporary Tapestry, traveling exhibition); Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum, Spokane, Washington (Tapestry: Contemporary Imagery/Ancient Tradition, traveling exhibition); British Crafts Centre, London, England (Wall Hung Textiles); Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, Australia (Sue Lawty: A Woven Language, solo exhibition); Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK (Taking Time, traveling exhibition, catalog).Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, England (Cloth & Culture NOW, traveling exhibition, catalog); Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, Ireland (Contemporary Textile Art: International Open); The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (The Fine Art of Weaving, catalog); The Haymarket Hotel, London, UK (acquisition); Leeds Museums and Galleries Collections (permanent collection); British Embassies, Jordan and Ghana (permanent collection); Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery, UK.