Sold for: $2,500

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by the present Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Richard Rhodes, Colette Whiten: New Needleworks, The Power Plant, 1992, the prepatory drawing reproduced page 6, the embroidered image reproduced page 15, installation view reproduced pages 9 and 21
Kate Taylor, "Women's Work," The Globe and Mail, January 21, 1992, exhibition discussed page C1
Deirdre Hanna, "Whiten's fine Needleworks tests media patterns," NOW Magazine, February 6-12, 1992, exhibition discussed page 59

EXHIBITED
The Power Plant, Toronto, Colette Whiten: New Needleworks, January 17 - March 1, 1992

Colette Whiten’s needleworks are compelling pieces, contrasting appropriated, mass-media images of political subjects with the representational force of an explicitly female medium. Black and white photographs drawn from newspapers were transposed onto cloth as embroidered images, painstakingly produced by hand, pixel by pixel, in cross stitch needlepoint. The resulting fabric is draped over a steel plinth or lectern, balancing a sense of lightness and transience with weighty presence. Whereas previous embroidered works considered depictions of power - representing political leaders, exclusively male and typically having already met their downfall - in this series, Whiten draws her imagery from news photos of women from India and the Middle East. In displaying the resulting tapestries over the heavy, freestanding plinths, Whiten traces a political agency that has been historically denied to her subjects and the medium that depicts them.

The work includes the preparatory drawing where Whiten plotted out the colours for the embroidered pattern. The paper is held to a steel plate by magnets and is affixed to a wall. The pattern - a familiar sight to anyone who has done embroidery - enlarges and elevates the original photograph, but grounding the act of translation in a traditionally feminine handcraft.

Please note: the listed dimensions are for the steel plinth. The embroidered image is 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. The prepatory drawing is 8 1/2 x 11 inches. The metal wall plate is 18 x 25 1/2 inches.

A copy of the 1992 exhibition catalogue is included with this lot.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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