Bad Spots | Sydney Contemporary, New South Wales | 5 September – 10 September 2017Amy Joy Watson’s eccentric objects such as sparkling clams with gobstoppers for pearls and helium balloon flying machines seem to come from some other world driven by a nostalgia for childhood play. The imagined worlds of childhood are transcribed through the adult patience and refinement of her painstaking making methods, which often involves delicate hand-stitching of segments of finely cut balsa wood to create geometric forms or laborious hand-stitching through paper to create shimmering tapestries. Until recently Amy has consciously resisted using black and with Joy for a middle name resigned herself to avoiding darkness in her work all together. In her most recent body of work ‘Bad Spots’ she has delved a little deeper and darker, albeit with humour, reflecting on her anxieties and idiosyncratic fears. Through the slow procss of making works like ‘It’ (woven with 1.3km of thread) the sculptures sat in as therapists or anxiety sponges absorbing fears they represent. It, 2017, Balsa wood, Indian Ink and thread, 80 x 60 x 75 cm Mound, 2017, balsa wood, indian ink, watercolour and metallic thread, 80 x 120 x 70cm Mound, 2017 Bad Spots, 2017, balsa wood, watercolour and metallic thread, 48 x 50 x 70 cm
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