The work:Clara Martin, Quilt No. 6 (Don’t Underestimate the Things that I will Do), 2022. Textiles, 55 x 65cm. Courtesy: the artist.
Ruminating on gender conventions and the traditional place of women in the home, Clara Martin’s textile works contrast the idea of a woman as an essential pillar of society and the keeper of the home with the concurrent concept of women as a threat to social order. Quilt No. 6 (Don’t Underestimate the Things that I Will Do) is inspired by the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer in 1486 and arguably one of the most important texts ever produced pertaining to witchcraft, exploring the inherent threat of the dissident female. In Kramer’s treatise, witchcraft became a largely female occupation, and any woman was capable of witchcraft due to their inherent weaknesses. In Martin’s work we see a visualisation of this dichotomy of the feminine, at once comforting and threatening. “I want to make those who interact with the quilt feel embraced by it while they are being attacked by it,” says the artist. Assembled from soft white satin and tenderly embroidered with cotton thread, its materials and construction connote feminine virtues and appropriate pastimes. However, the red lettering can be read as a warning. Martin’s work visualises the balancing act of womanhood, with its capacity for both creation and destruction.