Sally Hewett

Stitching Practice

My stitching practice centres around ideas of beauty and ugliness and the conventions that determine which is seen as which. I am interested in why some characteristics of bodies are considered beautiful and others ugly or disgusting.

I am also interested in the social and political history of stitching and embroidery. I work mainly with fabrics using hand stitching and embroidery and upholstery and toy-making techniques. I am interested in how we see things and how we interpret what we see: does my particular way of representing bodies, using fabrics and stitching, affect how the content of the work is seen? Is it seen as ugly, disgusting, beautiful, erotic, or just funny?

For some of my recent work I have been looking at plastic surgery, implants, use of fillers etc. - the desire to change anything which fails to comply with the conventional ideal, e.g. large noses, small breasts, fat bellies and bottoms, stretch marks, body hair.

BA Fine Art, Kent Institute of Art and Design, 2003
BA (Law), University of Kent, 1981

Stitch Fetish 5, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Threads, Espacio Gallery, Bethnal Green, London.
She Loves, Honey Pot Gallery, Los Angeles, Ca