Wild Things At Risk - Embroiderer's Guild, Concord West

 Jane Theau and Jo Mellor-Stewart have put together this interesting show of embroidered works. Mellor-Stewart's warm colours in smaller pieces are organic in an intriguing way but there is also a sense of rocks being present in the designs. 

You wonder is the design tracing the outlines of a body or is it a kind of Rorschach landscape. A tree appears then dissolves. Something organic. A portal presents itself then refuses to be named. This kind of liminal presence is confusing. It is like those escalators that only start moving when you approach them on foot. If there is nobody nearby they do not move.

Theau's amazing works are photoprints on cloth onto which embroidery has been added. The one above is a tree protest of course, people trying to prevent logging of old growth forest. Parts of the foliage are embroidered, making them stand out in bright relief.