Mercy Tarling
BA (Hons) Fine Art
The Woman I Was and The Woman I Could Still Be
Late at night as I am drifting off to sleep, I hear soft murmurings emanating from my wardrobe. If I listen carefully, I can hear two special dresses sharing secrets, their tales of life and loss. Waiting ever so patiently for the next generation of women to cherish them as I have done. Woven into their very fabric are histories and associations that enrich our lives. If we carefully unravel the threads, one can discover memories that were otherwise lost.
Textiles, craft techniques, and fabric manipulation are among the most historic forms of representation. Through wear and repair our experiences are shaped with them. Through the transformative nature of cloth, garments become autobiographical.
My artistic practice seeks to find the stories of women in the seams of second-hand clothing through deconstruction and disrupted reconstruction. My central interest is rooted in the lives of mother figures before they had children.
I give time to my writing practice, fabricating tales of seemingly ordinary women. Taking inspiration from music, archive photography, and observations of passers-by. By articulating these I try to patch the space left in my own familial history.
