April 17th to May 20th, 2005

In conjunction of the Festival of Quilts that runs through the Waterloo region during the month of May, the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is pleased to present McCurdy’s quilts. These unique works are composed of porcelain tiles with biographical imagery relating to family history and relationships.

McCurdy has stated that her work has long been inspired by textile patterns and motifs drawn from the intricate quill and needlework of indigenous Mi'kmaq and women's textiles, by her research into Western textile history and the central role played in it by women. She has also been influenced by her mother's personal involvement in the British textile industry earlier this century.

Over the past few years, McCurdy’s work has demonstrated a radical shift away from the footed vessels with textile inspired motifs for which she had become known. Her new work has moved from the exhibition plinth to the walls, creating entirely non-utilitarian ceramic wall hangings that, in their use of repeated patterns and the quilt-like style of display, inquire into the artistic possibilities inherent in the modernist grid, while retaining textile motifs and references. McCurdy has developed a technique for silk screening representational images on to porcelain slabs that has permitted her to undertake an introspective and highly-charged self-examination in ceramics. These new works, assembled of individual porcelain tiles stitched together into grids, employ the techniques of traditional hand work (historically associated with femininity) and the symbols and colours of the early suffragette movements in Canada and the United States.

McCurdy’s work literally and figuratively becomes a “quilting” together of two traditionally separate practices. By synthesizing them she not only creates a form of artwork which is unique and distinctive but which also stretches the established definitions of what such an art form (quilting) can be.

porcelain, embroidery floss, wooden dowel; 73 x 53 cm

porcelain, embroidery floss, wooden dowel; 84 x 53 cm