Fish wife
2021Fabric, natural dyyes, copper, recycled metal
Exhibited at Tinning Street Gallery.
This work reflects the uncertainty of my ancestry and its entanglement with the ecology of the Baltic Sea. This work started in Lithuania, where I dyed and made a wedding dress and married the sea.
Fish wife is the marriage house. A ceremonial structure inspired by an abandone listening tower near the Lithuanian/Russian coastal border on the Curonian Spit. The bones of my house are iron. Alongside the house are shrouds made of hand-dyed natural textiles. The symbol and colours reflect several elements.
Yellows and triangular shapes are amber. This washes up othe Baltic shoreline – fossilised tree resin from forests that stood during the Eocene.
Dusty pinks and the curve are the dunes along the Spit at sunset. A circle is a ring.
Blue and greys and the straight line are the sea and its calm horizon.
