Ellie Evans makes beautiful hand-stitched badges, purses, bags and pin cushions, combining traditional hand-embroidery with modern, digital print. Her work explores heritage, family history and cultural identity, focusing particularly on the absence of her Polish and Dutch grandparents. I love the way Ellie incorporates vintage remnants, documents and photos into her art and marries traditional and contemporary techniques. Her personal work centered on her feelings of loss for her grandparents led her to become more secretive in her artistic presentation and to investigate the "hanging pocket" as a vehicle to convey her ideas. Hanging pockets were worn by women in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, tied round their waist between their skirt and petticoat. They were both utilitarian and personal. "In the days when people often shared bedrooms and household furniture, a pocket was sometimes the only private, safe place for small personal possessions”. Ellie's hanging pockets adorned with indicators of her own identity and that of her grandparents provoke ideas of concealment and revealment. Lovely!
Ellie's work can be seen at the Shop Floor Project's contemporary folk ware exhibition until October 31st.
Found via All Things Original.
This is really interesting stuff. There's a fabulously folksy feel to it which is probably the heritage you referred to but it's also very groovy and 'now' isn't it? Cool - love those hanging pockets :) K
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