Competition works
  >  Artists  >  Artists Profile  >  Artwork

Bequeathed memory I and II

2019 Competition entry

Cecilia Maartens-Van Vuuren

Details:
Signed
Appropriated embroidery
80 x 40 cm each
R280 000 each, R560 000 for the set

Description:
Ruminating on affection, but also on how my sense for the aesthetic was fostered by my mother, I reflected on a memory of my mother’s skilful, exquisite needlework.  The artwork Bequeathed memory (2018) consisting of two pieces, comprises mainly my mother’s embroidery dating from the fifties, which I have re-appropriated through a process of re-embroidering onto the same items.  I imagine that the embroidered threat on the two pieces is telling story of my mother’s pristinely beautiful handicraft as well as how she nurtured my pursuit of music, drawing, painting and literature.  Through reflection on my childhood memories, I responded in Bequeathed memory #1 and #2 by threading my own story in a dissimilar style, interpreting my individuality, like a rhizome growing its own path.  In the threading is imbued, not only with my gratitude, admiration and love towards my mother, but also the absorption of our difference(s) and the complexity of fathoming aprotic experiences or apprehensions.