I hadn’t expected to find so many resonances with my own work, both thematically and visually when visiting this recent exhibition of Jessica Rankin at White Cube Mason’s Yard in London.
This new body of work is inspired by the “unity of creation and destruction… cellular and cosmological scales of movement and connect the act of making within cycles of transformation, collapse and renewal”.
While expressed in different words, these are the same themes I have been exploring and envisioining for over a decade.
I have featured Rankin’s work in a previous post so was keen to see her new pieces. Her signature technique of painting and stitching on natural linen with the titles stitched down the sides remains
while much of the acrylic mark-making is transluscent and more ink-like.
Her titles are quotes from various sources including her mother, poet Jennifer Rankin, Silvia Plath and the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Look at the tension between linear stitching and fluid painting, the dancing of stitch over and between paint.
Her circles, like mine, are celestial and cellular.
You can feel the vibration of that elemental energy, the endless dance of creation, destruction and regeneration.
