Isabella Feek

Isabella Feek is an emerging artist currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UNSW Art & Design, majoring in Printmaking, and SPI (Sculpture, Performance, Installation). A prevalent focus in Feek’s artistic practice is fabric and its materiality, in particular bedroom curtains. In 2019, Feek exhibited in the Eden Gardens Outdoor Sculpture Show. She was also selected as a Kudos Gallery White Cube volunteer (2019), and awarded a New Colombo Plan Scholarship (2020) to study cultural textiles in West Bengal, India.

Drawing from her own personal relationship with fabric as an intimate, circumambient material, Feek aims for audiences to rediscover the position fabrics play in their everyday life; making the invisible and ignored, visible. Feek incorporates a variety of different fabrics that hold both personal and practical significance to create her abstract, textured prints, some including; domestic curtains, bedsheets, personal cloth and muslin cloth (an essential element of printmaking procedures). 

#5 | Muslin Cloth II, 2020, lithograph, edition 1 of 2. 50 x 38 cm. NFS

Muslin Cloth II is a further exploration of the materiality and role of muslin in a printmakers’ artistic process. Muslin being such an intrinsic, irreplaceable element of an intaglio printing studio; I wanted to further push this idea in different visual printing methods. Muslin Cloth II is my first lithography print and I used a combination of image transfer techniques with tusche, running inked muslin through the press directly onto the lithography stone to create the different textures in this print. The use of different techniques has resulted in different textures prevalent and overlaid in the print however the print consists solely from the studios’ muslin cloth. Muslin Cloth II educates audiences unfamiliar with the printmaking studio, muslin;, an overlooked, crucial tool; making the invisible, ignored and “mundane” visible, interesting fine art. 

#6 | Every Morning VI, 2020, zinc plate etching, edition 1 of 1. 55 x 56.5 cm. $400

Every Morning VI is part of a series of seven zinc plate etchings exploring my personal relationship with my bedroom curtains and their role in my everyday life. Curtains have long provided a sense of protection, safety and security - blocking out light and curious, peering eyes from seeing what’s inside. The way the curtain shifts and moves, manipulating light and visibility, is a central aspect of this work. The bedroom is a place of safety and security for myself. Curtains are symbolic of domesticity, privacy and duplicity. Duplicitous conversations surround curtains regarding; coverage and exposure, whenever they are used to cover they simultaneously expose something else.

Every Morning VI is an introspective etching centred on domestic life, intimacy and privacy depicted with soft, subtle etching techniques. Created to evoke a personal connection with audiences and deeper thought into mundane, everyday tasks; focusing on making those consistent, drudging choices visible.