The work: Sylvie Veness, Orb, 2020. Stitched etching on rag paper, 23 x 23cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Currently studying a Masters of Fine Art at the National Art School, Sydney, Sylvie Veness is on a quest for quiet contemplation. With a practice in drawing, printmaking and textiles, Veness challenges the structure of the grid, with its repetitive and accurate form, to disrupt our comfortability with order, sequence and authority. “[My] goal is to upend habitual, predictable processes by engaging with awkward feelings and sensations,” she says. “Each work is a biographical fragment, an intimate engagement whose tactile surfaces call for closer inspection.” In Orb we are asked to reflect on opposing forces. The fragile surface of paper has been punctured with a needle and thread so that the stitching appears as a perfectly rendered scar, still and permanent.