CONTEMPORARY TEXTILE
PRINTS BY ZULU WOMEN.
Access gallery images, here.
Date:
from 30 October 2007 to 31 December 2007.
Place: Textile Museum and Documentation Centre.
Description: Gem Melville was born in South Africa, the descendant of European emigrants. In 1992 she founded the “Pakhamani Textiles” cooperative which produces hand-printed fabrics and provides Zulu women with a means to make a living. In her work, Gem mixes African and European inspirations; as she says, “print is to the cloth as breath is to the song” .
Melville highlights the beauty of lives led with a passion that is both delicate and extreme. Fragments of dreams and the clash of contrasts blend together and separate.
This exhibition of hand-printed fabrics expresses the spirit of travel and work, distance and return, and resounds with all the dissonance and fullness of a highly versatile soul.
Melville’s work with indigenous African design is an exploration of the great complexity of simple decoration.
Organization and production: Gem Melville.