Kiss, Kiss, Kiss / Democracy

Abstract

Submitting work to “Sample” & “The Art of the Stitch”, Ayliffe was selected by a panel of artists and museum curators amongst a field of 430 international artists. Ayliffe contributed two paintings “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss” (152 x183cm) and “Democracy” (152 x183cm) (oil, gloss-paint and digiprint on canvas) for the exhibition. Ayliffe’s paintings have previously deployed hand-stitching in both functional and performative roles to signify intense, repetitive labour as a reflection on the historically female pursuits of embroidery, patchwork and the decorative arts. In “Sample”, this is expanded through the development of technical and formal strategies able to question and disrupt the cultural values attached to different types of mark making. For this work Ayliffe created simple cross-stitch embroideries that were photographed, digitally manipulated, then enlarged and printed onto canvas. Digital images were collaged onto the surface and employed alongside hard edge/painted geometric patterns and repeated gestural marks in an attempt to upset normalised, hierarchical readings of media, mark and gesture. The painted gesture is endlessly and exactly repeated while the stitches, enlarged and digitised, take on the characteristics of the painterly gesture.