ESSENCE OF PLACE

Essence of Place – An exhibition of tapestries by Shunyam Smith

Tapestry as a medium has traditionally been used both to tell stories, personal and historical, full of allusion and metaphor. It requires a deeper reading to uncover the hidden layers of meanings and memories that are entwined with the physical materials and slow nature of the weaving.

Stories of places and objects are created by time as well as their physicality, and to begin to understand the essence of a place one must absorb these slowly, over time. Some of these tapestries tell more obvious stories, but always shaped by the intangible boundaries between land, humankind, and the influences of place. For decades now, watching the changing process of the land where I live has allowed me to ‘read’ and absorb these stories and memories stored in trees, rocks, lakes, rivers, forests and mountains. Our human memories are traced in objects all around us. Nature has written her history everywhere if we choose to look slowly and deeply.

At the heart of my work is this interrelation of stories and the material, their mutual intrication a metaphor for the weaving process, revealing the richness and complexity of the essence of place.