Alice Kettle Talk 7/03/17

On Tuesday Alice kettle gave a really inspiring talk to everyone in TIP L4. Before the talk I was completely unaware of her work, and I'm so glad I was able to hear her go into detail about her creative practice as I found it extremely eye-opening. She works with stitch and embroidery to create phenomenally impressive large-scale tapestry-like pieces, referencing Greek mythology, Womanhood and everything in between. Her pieces are highly symbolic and have strong narratives running through them, brought to life through abstract human figures. What struck me was how Alice is able to convey really complex ideas and thoughts by emphasising colour and line, and how her pieces have an intense sense of movement and energy. Often, she is tackling quite sensitive subject matter, such as family relationships or contemporary political issues, but through her work she offers a more positive, perhaps contemplative angle to the story, without compromising the seriousness of the subject matter. There is a great sense of continuity throughout her body of work, and while each piece may represent different ideas or times in her life, there's no doubt that they all fit together to form the narrative of her own story and creative practise. What I enjoyed about hearing her speak was the way in which she honestly and generously revealed the feelings and inspiration behind each work and how her circumstances at the time of making affected the final outcome of the work. I really appreciated her letting us into her thought process like this as so often it can seem that an artist is an enigma and it is up to the audience to extract their meaning. It revealed to me that there is no set way of finding inspiration, and often you have to reflect on your own experiences in order to create something new. Alice also made me think a lot about how as artists, we can't help referencing ourselves in our work. It's something I hope to develop and to see how she represents herself subtly in her work was fascinating.