Emily Shires

A coil of fuchsia pink knitting with white elastic stripes. Placed on some green grass. The text to the side reads The Temporary

Emily is a knit artist. Utilising primarily dead stock and second-hand yarns, she bring a new lease of life into yarns which were discarded. Her focus has been on responsible manufacture of this collection of temporary interior knitted sculptures. The collection which explores the shared characteristics between unconventional form and technical failure. If a knit sculpture was designed to look like that, is it a failure?

She also explores the imaginary, impossible and the temporary. By taking her work down and re arranging everyday throughout the textiles festival to experiment with different forms she creates work which just exists only in photos giving the work a dreamlike quality.

A woman stands in front of a table which has flat, square knittin on it. There is a cone of bright orange yarn in the foreground

Recently emerging from a Textile Design BA at Norwich University of the Arts Emily previously worked with a keen interest in mixed media. Her more recent textile explorations have been into knitting which has provided stunning visuals with a background of unique story telling. During Emily’s time at the Royal College of Art she has focussed on knitting, primarily using dead stock yarn to explore the relationship between pictorial representation and abstract form. Perspective, unconscious validation and the idea of ‘The Temporary’ are the three main themes of her work. Working through the idea that each form is a temporary expression of the subject and therefore expressing that everything state in life is simply temporary.

She pictures the work below in an artistic interior setting. The use of dead stock and second hand yarns has always been important to her as she feels it is the more responsible choice. Her stuffed work, which explores unconventional form is filled with waste knitting and yarn. This allows for its three dimensional shape and unexpected stuffing 'leaks'. The use of dead stock yarns also allow for exploration into the makeup of the yarn as the yarns frequently aren't labelled, leaving Emily to draw out the exact content.

Knitted Sculpture and The Temporary

This sequence of sculptural form knitting images represents the idea of the temporary. Embodying the short, sharp structure of my process and proving that ultimately these forms live in these images alone and cannot be recreated.

Short videos helped me to bring the narrative and dreamlike quality to the project. Almost humanising the sculptural forms. Emily gave them nicknames throughout the project, such as 'Travelling Man' and ‘Knitted Man'.

Knitted Man –

Travelling Man

Coils

Closer

Travelling Man Alive

Closer II

Knitted Man Alive

Medium:

Knitting

Perception and Pictorial Language

These clean images define the almost ‘collage like’ section of this project. Allowing the viewer a more accessible take on what knitting is. This part of the project provides a healthy and realistic way into understanding what knitting as an art form is. Emily places a huge importance on including those who have never experienced textile art as her target audience. This is where the idea of perception emerges, those who know textiles and knitting may see it one way and those who have never been exposed to textile art will see it another, almost anew.

Pocket

Line up

Medium:

Knitting

artistic-interiors interior-textiles knitting sculpture

Knitting the non existent

To further her exploration into unconventional form she wanted to understand how her pieces could be transformed and translated into the digital realm. This contributed to her theme of ‘the temporary’ by expressing the pieces in drawings that only exist in a visual/virtual space which ultimately is temporary. Learning the CAD software allowed her to realise knit designs that may only exist in the digital realm.