Hannah White: Ammonite Shadow Series
As a weaver Hannah White has a fascination with how constructed textiles can create sculptural forms. Her textile sculptures engage the senses by exploring the interplay between the structure of her fabrics, material characteristics, form and light. Hannah's woven and stitched artworks evolve through a process of manipulating her fabrics into organic forms, allowing the qualities of the cloth to influence their shapes. Hannah's ‘Ammonite Shadow’ series is inspired by the sculptural qualities of Ammonite fossils. The pleated forms spiral and curve, creating contemporary textile fossils. Different lighting conditions enhances the work. As the sunlight moves across each piece it creates a series of changing shadows at different times throughout the day, emphasising the form. Directional light creates dramatic crisp shadows, adding another dimension. When creating the patterns within her woven fabrics, Hannah considers how these colourations will be affected when they are transformed into three-dimensions. As the woven patterns follow the undulating contours and swirling forms, distinctive markings appear, making each unique piece. The monochrome colours draw influences from the illustrations of 19th Century geology artists, such as Ernst Haeckel, who captured Ammonites’ sculptural qualities in exquisite detail. The copper and blue tones reference the hues created by mineral deposits found in ammonites discovered within specific rock substrates.