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REVIEWS JESSICA RANKIN
JESSICA RANKIN
WHITE CUBE, HOXTON SQUARE, LONDON
20 APRIL – 19 MAY
‘A night fi lled with the odour of stale urine’, declares one of the curious map of the cosmos overlaid with large spindly letters. Others, such as U are
textual fragments stitched onto the organdy fabric of one of Jessica less compelling, even badly composed, and the fragility of her aesthetic
Rankin’s embroidered works. becomes fl imsy instead of simply delicate. Perversely, while Rankin believes
In Rankin’s overstitched fabric pieces, overlapping texts (poems that in embroidery she has found her ideal métier, it seems to take away
consisting of philosophical statements and absurd observations) and organic from her work as much as it gives.
forms are juxtaposed, and methods traditionally associated with femininity Rankin’s works are referred to as embroidered paintings, but they
are drawn upon to construct a series of ‘mental maps’. This, Rankin’s fi rst don’t appear so – lacking the weight of canvases, the layering of organdy
solo show in the UK, brings together the artist’s sewn works and a selection doesn’t make their forms ‘reverberate’, but rather cheapens their impact. The
of sketchbook drawings and watercolours. Explaining the signifi cance of texts are supposed to assume an abstract quality, yet often the crossover
sewing, Rankin has stated: ‘Colette once said that she couldn’t stand her between decorative and narrative elements seems simply clichéd. Rankin’s
daughter sewing, because she had no access to her. Although she was artistic relationship to feminism has some serious pedigree; she was taught
busy, her mind was free to wander; it was a way of escaping… The medium by Martha Rosler, and has recalled that at this earlier point in her career she
feels very true to me. It’s liberating; you can delve into it.’ spent her time ‘making really bad work about feminist issues that was trite
It is this sense of sewing as a form of creative liberation, as an act and empty.’
where unconscious roving thoughts become aesthetic forms, where It’s a good thing that Rankin isn’t still making really bad feminist work,
drawing becomes textile, that is central to Rankin’s art. However, far but at the same time one can’t help feeling she hasn’t quite found her voice
from the confessional splurges of Tracey Emin, Rankin’s approach to the yet. Perhaps, paradoxically, this is where the strength of Rankin’s work lies.
relationship between femininity and needlework, and the diaristic mode, is Maybe in its precariousness and weirdly vulnerable style she deliberately
more nuanced. Rankin has said that ‘sewing has a longevity, a resonance, courts the frailty of artistic expression. Whether this ambivalence is enough
it requires an ongoing relationship that refl ects the random, repetitive of an artistic achievement in itself is harder to ascertain. Sarah James
motion of a word in your head’. In some of the work on show, Rankin’s use
of embroidery works well; the combined ef_f ect of translucent fabric, fragile Lunar/Effi gy, 2006, embroidery on organdy, 114 x 152 cm.
stitching and script comes of_f , as in Ripple (all works 2007), which of_f ers a Photo: Jens Ziehe. © the artist. Courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube, London
one.lintwo.linseven.lin ARTREVIEW
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