Project Description
the brit and the great bear
129x93cm
2016
Drawing, painting and machine embroidery on silk. Painted wooden frame.
Made for the 62 Group exhibition, Making Space, at Macclesfield Silk Museum from 18.05.16 to 03.09.16. Then touring to the Spring Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia in London from 2 to 5 March 2017, then touring to the Royal Highland Centre from 27 to 30 April 2017.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“The Atlas Coelestis from the observations at Greenwich by the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed (1646-1719), was published posthumously in 1729. It depicts the constellations as was the received knowledge at the time.
I have used celestial imagery for many years; my interest in Space began in 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik during the Cold War, through the NASA Moon landing in 1969, and subsequent space flights. ESA astronaut Tim Peake is the first Briton to walk in space, with the Russians at the ISS, but here on earth we still have a quasi-Cold War. How far have we come…?”