Revelation - Stories and Secrets Disclosed is an exhibition three years in the making and features Tamlin Blake's most recent tapestries. It is the culmination of a six year exploration into recycled newspaper as a tapestry medium.
An interplay of influences informs this collection which reflects on how, visually and conceptually, stories weave themselves around us, the main influences being the imagery and narrative of the 14th century Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers and the news articles and stories in the recycled newspapers themselves.
Tapestry is traditionally a form of storytelling and the 14th century Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers focuses on the story of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation by Saint John the Divine. It represents the heroic aspects of the last confrontation between good and evil, featuring battle scenes between angels and beasts. It is a work of intricate detail and was woven in Paris from 1377 to 1380. Highly revered at the time it then went out of fashion, was looted and cut into pieces. Eventually seventy of the original one hundred panels were recovered, restored and the now one hundred meter long work hangs in the Cathedral of Angers in France. This tapestry is unusual because while blending dreamlike, epic and often wild images it also contains elements of contemporary life situations.
The often seemingly surreal rise and fall of contemporary heroes, the successes and tragedies of ordinary people and the births and deaths of neighbours fill in turn the stories of our local newspapers. These everyday yet sometimes bizarre events in other people's lives insinuate themselves into our reality, affect our thinking and become part of the process by which we define our own identities.
The word "revelation" deals with disclosing secrets and unveiling the meaning of stories. Blake is interested in the inner workings, or the subconscious associations, inherent in her subject matter and the internal influences of our individual pantheon of gods and demons. She weaves her influences together to recreate narratives which attempt to look behind the surface of stories and reflect the emotional state of our contemporary existence.
Jacki Innes writes in Tamlin Blake (Spier 2012: pg 88 and 92):
"The soothing surface (of Blake's tapestries) belies myriad levels of meaning to be gleaned below. Newspapers are cheap, disposable and readily available to everyone - whether first or second-hand. Tapestry, on the other hand, is associated with rarity, wealth and status... The themes most often depicted in private tapestries were epic; scenes from the battlefield or hunting grounds, or sometimes genteel landscapes or intricate patterning were preferred. Blake's tapestries retain an element of this in her use of a backdrop of flat patterning but it is her foregrounds that diverge from convention. In contrast to the heroic scenes of yore, Blake substitutes imagery that appears to refer to readily recognisable moments from our everyday, contemporary lives... But there is always a disquieting detail."
"(Blake's tapestries) transform something that was commonplace and essentially worthless into something inimitable and infinitely precious, but ... they are paradoxical too... in their retelling of society's stories. The bits and pieces of factual news or speculative gossip found in the daily papers, whose relevance fades the moment the next day's paper lands on the news-stand, is re-presented as an enduring and unique narrative"
An interplay of influences informs this collection which reflects on how, visually and conceptually, stories weave themselves around us, the main influences being the imagery and narrative of the 14th century Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers and the news articles and stories in the recycled newspapers themselves.
Tapestry is traditionally a form of storytelling and the 14th century Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers focuses on the story of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation by Saint John the Divine. It represents the heroic aspects of the last confrontation between good and evil, featuring battle scenes between angels and beasts. It is a work of intricate detail and was woven in Paris from 1377 to 1380. Highly revered at the time it then went out of fashion, was looted and cut into pieces. Eventually seventy of the original one hundred panels were recovered, restored and the now one hundred meter long work hangs in the Cathedral of Angers in France. This tapestry is unusual because while blending dreamlike, epic and often wild images it also contains elements of contemporary life situations.
The often seemingly surreal rise and fall of contemporary heroes, the successes and tragedies of ordinary people and the births and deaths of neighbours fill in turn the stories of our local newspapers. These everyday yet sometimes bizarre events in other people's lives insinuate themselves into our reality, affect our thinking and become part of the process by which we define our own identities.
The word "revelation" deals with disclosing secrets and unveiling the meaning of stories. Blake is interested in the inner workings, or the subconscious associations, inherent in her subject matter and the internal influences of our individual pantheon of gods and demons. She weaves her influences together to recreate narratives which attempt to look behind the surface of stories and reflect the emotional state of our contemporary existence.
Jacki Innes writes in Tamlin Blake (Spier 2012: pg 88 and 92):
"The soothing surface (of Blake's tapestries) belies myriad levels of meaning to be gleaned below. Newspapers are cheap, disposable and readily available to everyone - whether first or second-hand. Tapestry, on the other hand, is associated with rarity, wealth and status... The themes most often depicted in private tapestries were epic; scenes from the battlefield or hunting grounds, or sometimes genteel landscapes or intricate patterning were preferred. Blake's tapestries retain an element of this in her use of a backdrop of flat patterning but it is her foregrounds that diverge from convention. In contrast to the heroic scenes of yore, Blake substitutes imagery that appears to refer to readily recognisable moments from our everyday, contemporary lives... But there is always a disquieting detail."
"(Blake's tapestries) transform something that was commonplace and essentially worthless into something inimitable and infinitely precious, but ... they are paradoxical too... in their retelling of society's stories. The bits and pieces of factual news or speculative gossip found in the daily papers, whose relevance fades the moment the next day's paper lands on the news-stand, is re-presented as an enduring and unique narrative"
