Christian Newby
Boredom>Mischief>Fantasy>Radicalism>Fantasy
Christian's new commission responded to the building, originally built to house an astronomical telescope, with a large-scale textile - Flower-Necklace-Cargo-Net and an accompanying printed newspaper.
The new tapestry combined Christian’s mark-making with industrial carpet tufting to explore how questions of labour, authorship and materiality define the fine and applied arts. Made using an industrial hand-held carpet-tufting gun, Christian explored the potential capacity of this machine as a mark-making tool rather than its primary function in a rote manufacturing process. By using the tufting tool’s nimbleness as an equivalent to a pencil, spray can, paintbrush, or tattoo needle, Christian questioned how textile works are positioned between art and craft.
Images found within the work subvert typical rug and textile design motifs such as flowers, birds and shells with free-hand organic forms, pictorially contained by a large net that envelopes the whole tapestry, alluding to our shared experience of enclosure during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
A newspaper which accompanies the work, Ornaments and Crimes, offered a context for the tapestry and includes a new essay by writer Andrew Bourne alongside drawings, writing and scores by Christian offering in-depth information on his practice.
This exhibition was part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2021.
About Christian Newby
Christian Newby is an artist based in London. He graduated with an MFA from Glasgow School of Art (2009). Selected exhibitions include: Brick-Wall-Spider-Web-Post-It-Note, Beers London (2019), Yo Compro Calidad, Matadero, Madrid (2017); Tetracontameron Space Between, London (2016) and; Le Club des Sous l’Eau’ Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016). Christian has been an artist in residence at – Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU, Artist-in-Residence, Hong Kong (2019), Matadero Madrid El Ranchito exchange with Arthouse Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria (2017) and URRA/Gasworks Residency, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2015). He is currently a PhD researcher at the Contemporary Art Research Centre, Kingston University, London.
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