Used clothing, zips, stitch

My imaginary friend, 2010
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My imaginary friend is an abstract self-portrait. It explores Carl Jung’s individuation, the process of finding meaning in life, which he says  needs to start in mid-life. It's ultimately a preparation for death. Jung talks about balancing our multiple selves with the dark side, or shadow, of ourselves, and maintains that failure to acknowledge and accept this shadow can result in fragmentation and associated mental health issues. He also describes the shadow as being the seat of creativity. 

Taking the form of a shroud, My imaginary friend is a crazy patchwork made up of fragments of my old clothes, randomly and roughly stitched together. Interspered amongst the clothing are pockets of red velvet from a pair of my old trousers, which are set into small zips. 

I made this scupture as part of my Art Foundation course, when I first discovered Jung's individuation. I was nearly 50. Since then, individuation, fragmentation and explorations of my dark side have been recurrent themes in my work. I was also just discovering that the functional knitting and stitching skills that I took for granted were readily transferable to making art.   

In 2013, I knitted a second Shroud. 

Shroud, 2013, hand knitted wool, installed at Unravelling, Bow Arts, London, October 2016
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I've written several blog posts on this theme - Cloth and the abject and The dark side of stitch

Have a look at my undergraduate dissertation as well - Second skin: Used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski, 2014