Holding Time Exhibition at the Bhavan Centre UK

Rachel Gomme Knitting a Rothko In this cumulative performance, I knit to create a piece of fabric echoing a painting by Mark Rothko (while not attempting a reproduction of any particular painting). The textile is over 2 m wide, and it is envisaged that the finished piece will be of a similar size and shape to one of the original paintings. Much of the material is recycled yarn. The piece gradually grows through a series of durational performances; at the end of each the textile is hung with its unfinished edge trailing balls of yarn and suggesting its possible continuation down the wall.

I am interested in how knitting can operate as a metaphor for time and space, the linear yarn knitted into a 3-dimensional fabric suggesting the relationship between chronological time and space. The repeated stitches are indicative of how small actions or tiny, almost unnoticed details gradually build into something larger; in knitting each individual action (stitch) used to make the fabric remains visible in the final piece. The continuity of the yarn nevertheless suggests how these details become part of a seamless whole. In making large-scale work or long-durational performance with knitting, I bring what has traditionally been a female domestic craft into the public arena, rendering the labour and repetitive nature of the work visible.