Charlotte Wallis Recapture

Credits
  • Tauira / Student
    Charlotte Wallis
  • Kaiako / Lecturers
    Lisa Munnelly, Faith Kane
Description:

‘RECAPTURE’ is a woven collection questioning the singular perspective of photography as a regime of truth.

Inspired by my family’s love for immortalising moments of significance, this collection unpacks a family history told in photographs. Photography is masterful at omitting key truths through restricting a whole event to single frames. These single frames are the key imagery explored.

The focus of this project surrounds the rich photo collection that my great grandmother created through her hobby of photography. Her passion for curating photograph collections a skill she passed down through her family.

The subject of textiles sparks never ending conversation with my grandmothers and is often woven in with their anecdotes of past ancestors. I felt it would be fitting to explore controlled narratives and what lies beyond the frame through weaving, in particular tapestry weaving, as it is a combination of old practices with new resources.

The process of weaving on the TC2 loom requires any hand crafted work to be transformed into pixels through digital manipulation. This process alters the photographic images as they are stripped right down to black and white, patterns and textures create the shading and definition. The weaving that is in black and white are digital files created directly from an image. The works in colour originate from a combination of painted and digitally collaged explorations.

Throughout this project I felt strongly connect to the family around me and those who are no longer here. My hope is this collection captures a small part of my grandparent’s stories, the impact they have had shaping who I am and how I see the world.