Kay Lawrence, Portfolio Collection 9

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Review

In other Textile Forum no. 1/02 we announced the forthcoming publication of the Portfolio series by Matthew Koumis, a publisher committed to textile art themes based in Winchester, UK. Volumes featuring artists are available. The Portfolio book for the Australian tapestry artist Kay Lawrence will be reviewed below as an example. The artist has managed to gain recognition in the so-called free art scene, which may be related to the fact that tapestry art is held in high esteem in Australia. Among other things Lawrence has designed a monumental embroidery for the Australian parliament building which was executed in 1988 under the supervision of Dorothy Hyslop, as a "community tapestry" involving many embroiderers. Such community pieces became traditional and attract public interest in Australia.
Kay Lawrence’s tapestries also have a political component. The artist views her medium as a powerful instrument for launching subversive ideas, for the precise reason that they were once used as a means to express the growing power of the aristocracy in the European past. The author Diana Wood Conroy, a tapestry weaver and professor at the University of Wollongong, introduces the reader to the private and increasingly intimate tapestry world of Kay Lawrence, created during the 1990s. It appears that this art genre has, in Australia, largely freed itself from the stigma of being a mere craft. If textile art is an indicator of women’s equality, then Australian society is well on its way.
Other artists in the Portfolio series include Lia Cook, Jane Lackey, Gerhardt Knodel, Kyoung Ae Cho, Jason Pollen, Barbara Layne, Kay Sekimachi, Emily Dubois, Gyöngy Laky, Virginia Davis, Piper Shepard, Valerie Kirk, Annet Couwenberg and Susan Lordi Marker.

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