OUR NEW COLLECTION
OUR NEW COLLECTION
OUR NEW COLLECTION
OUR NEW COLLECTION
Written in Thread is a new series of collectable textile art presented by Something Good Studio. The full collection officially launches at RMB Latitudes Art Fair from 24-26 May 2024. It features unique or highly limited edition artworks primarily produced by and in collaboration with Something Good Studio by artists Maja Maljević, Ditiro Mashigo, Renée Rossouw and Lulama Wolf. All of these artists have collaborated with the Studio in the past, creating bespoke designs in the form of blankets, rugs, wall hangings and even ceramics. In some cases monumental, in others experimental or unusual, Written in Thread enters a new terrain for the Studio, pushing the boundaries of how to define textile pieces. Each work is an expression of the artist's output in a novel way – for some completely different to anything else they've produced in the past – composed of a profound yet quiet story, written in thread.
The idea for the collection emerged from a studio visit between Something Good Studio founder Zydia Botes and artist Renée Rossouw in 2023. Botes was reimagining the artist’s woodwork as textile, and saw the potential of creating something large-scale, almost amorphous; something that blurred the boundaries between functional design and fine art. She decided to create a whole new collection, inviting curator Lara Koseff to help conceive a body of work to be launched at RMB Latitudes Art Fair in 2024. An often undervalued and sidelined medium in the history of art, textile has maintained a tenacious ability to reappear in unexpected ways, fighting against its sometimes perceived obsolescence or its tired label as “merely” craft or design. Perhaps because it is so ubiquitous in our everyday lives – from what we wear to what keeps us warm – textile may often be taken for granted, yet remains a central and unspoken part of our way of life. In its complexity, varied texture, and multifaceted beauty it is also a remarkable medium with which to reconsider or retell intimate stories that can be difficult to articulate in words or other harder or flatter mediums. In her search to define what these artworks are, Botes settled on the term “soft sculpture” – which perfectly expresses the way in which these are flexible and gentle objects, created with sculptural textile engineering.
Botes first worked with artist and textile designer Ditiro Mashigo and her fashion design company Serati Ltd when the two collaborated on an experimental series of unique blankets in 2019. “We created a tactile range,” said Botes at the time, “with the intent of evoking the spirit of love, joy, peace and nostalgia". Mashigo has returned to work with Something Good Studio on Written in Thread, presenting the textile installation titled Kala, a word that means tree stem, and also refers to kalana which is the Sotho word for the umbilical cord. Kala, which the artist has worked on intermittently for two years, is composed primarily of clothing: her own, some of it manufacturing waste and some sourced from the fashion industry. Mashigo’s work – both ready-to-wear and not – has integrated upcycling offcuts from the fast-fashion industry, engendering a beautiful and sustainable practice. She skillfully combines and fuses these discarded, personal and often undervalued items, tracking back in a meditative spirit the paths and connections that bind her and her maternal lineage.
In her past collaborations with Something Good Studio, Maja Maljević worked with Botes in ways that challenged her rigorous dedication to paint. These saw Maljević work in textile for the first time in the form of blankets and rugs, and in addition they created a series of non-functional ceramics. For Written in Thread, Botes had a vision to take Maljević’s recreation of her work in three dimensional ceramic sculpture to another dimension; working from a flat photograph but reinterpreting the different heights and textures of the original ceramic piece in a way that tufted wool and silka allows to create something sculptural. The result of this collaboration, titled Tactile Memory, is something quite whimsical and playfully challenges the notion of truth to materials.
The first work produced in the series by Rossouw, titled Communal Landscape 1 – which launched on its own at Candice Berman Gallery’s new space, 223 Jan Smuts Ave earlier in the year – tries to capture the unseen natural cycle and the microcosms and stories that once quietly circulated within the materials that we take for granted. Based on a wood carving, this and a sister work were recreated on top of what Rossouw calls “failed” self-portraits. These shapes that began as a woman’s body came to represent a mycelium root network – a fungal colony that is believed to communicate with other mushrooms through underground electrical impulses. After seeing Communal Landscape 1 as a wood carving, Botes had an idea to recreate the curved edges, wall-relief and three dimensionality of the original work in tufted wool. This new adaptation is a painstakingly produced and stunning reconsideration of the piece’s initial reference to the thread-like structures that expand to form a mycelium network, carrying the cryptic messages and stories of little, unknown lives.
Another artist primarily dedicated to paint, Lulama Wolf’s canvas-based creations come to life in a very different way, reimagined in mohair. Wolf and Botes have collaborated on mohair pieces in the past in the form of rugs, but here they push the medium further, once again playing with texture, softness and depth. Wolf has become well known for her deep pigment techniques referencing vernacular architecture, and presenting proof of life. In these new soft sculptures – titled Feasting of Echoes and Savouring Silence – she departs from her iconic contorted figures to focus on still life. She creates an intimate space and scenario - dinner for two, with two still lives of wine glasses, a decanter and a jug that are reinvigorated through the texture and tactility of mohair fabric. Here, the edge of each artwork is easily undefined, the still-life objects escaping from the rectangle parameters of the work, imbuing these everyday items with a sense of corporeality.
