About this Artwork

This work is a sewn painting where the two different and separate painted areas are joined, or bridged, by the thread sewn between them.
There are also borders around the painted areas and the colorful border edge to lower section of the painting.  

As is often the case in Stone's work, she was thinking of painting and materials used for art making, the hierarchy of them, as well as a personal reflection on relationships and in this piece even politics. 

Audre Stone's statement about the Sewn paintings:

"After working exclusively on paper for five years, I was ready for a change yet unsure how to combine the materials of paint and thread onto canvas or linen. I desired to have the color and image become bolder and to incorporate other materials as needed. The grid format of my drawings was lost in that process which opened the work up in terms of composition and personal narrative. The common ‘thread’ between the two processes remains my continued interest in the defining tension between craft and art, and the inevitable comparison of lines, surfaces and materials; painted or sewn, looking uniform at first glance only to realize on closer inspection the differences of each. 

I use the thread as a way to apply color and add dimension and sculptural elements.  Woven, thread becomes a continual surface, as in the canvas itself. Paint has it’s own material elements; it adheres to the surface of canvas, seals it, and becomes a skin upon it. Paint is easily manipulated and applied, reapplied, layered and blended in a variety of ways. I find a certain uncontrolled control while using tape with the paint as the edges seem to often have a way of expressing something a little unpredictable. 

Both materials come with their own histories and associations: Thread is associated with ‘women’s work’, domestic settings, and the practices of craft.  Thread has the functional abilities to repair, decorate and hold things together.

Painting comes from a male dominated history.  Combining thread, floss and sewing techniques with paint I question how expression is seen within a hierarchy of male or female values.  Does one material or form of expression demand a higher value, (emotionally, mentally or monetarily) over the other because of our cultural perceptions and gender associations?  Or are they equalized as they play on the same field, basically doing the same thing – creating surface, shape, color, symbol, an image"