2013 Inter-Sensorial Threads: University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia
What must I do now? Woven tapestry in wool, silk and cotton. Handspun wool and alpaca by Elizabeth Kalucy. 60cm x 180cm, 2013. Diana Wood Conroy, Nicholas Conroy (website and QR code), Rowan Conroy (time-lapse film)
Personal Statement
I continue to weave through love of the intricate, thoughtful process of relating threads and patterns. I began the most recent tapestry on a day of ‘catastrophic’ bushfire danger in the Illawarra (January 14, 2013) after getting a text ‘Be prepared to evacuate the house’. My ‘bushfire plan’ was to make a metaphorical net of safety by weaving with a full heart, as if to implement freshly the apotropaic function of making, to protect the viewer, and turn away the tides of distraction and doubt.
The woven QR label directs viewers to the accompanying time-lapse film documenting the making of the tapestry. Click link below to see time-lapse.
Works in Public Collections: 2010 - 2000
University of Wollongong Art Collection
All the days of my life, 2010. Wool, silk and linen tapestry on cotton warp. 60 x 180cm unframed
From Breathing Space: Liz Jeneid and Diana Wood Conroy, Wollongong City Gallery 2010 (pdf of catalogue)
Naming: Lake Mungo, 2000. Linen tapestry, with gouache and gesso on canvas. 120 x 120cm unframed.
Alexandria, 2000. Wool, silk and linen on linen warp. 65 x 183cm unframed
Flinders University Collection, Adelaide
The theatre of Ariadne, 2001
Gouache, gesso and graphite with Woonona earth pigment (coalwash) and tapestry fragment in linen, wool and silk, on canvas. 178 x 184 cm.
Ariadne helped Theseus through the labyrinth of Crete to kill her brother the Minotaur, by means of a thread. After being abandoned by Theseus in Naxos, Dionysos carried her off as his bride. Dionysos was the god associated with all the rituals of theatre, and the theatre plan is like a labyrinth.
This piece is a reflection on the mosaic labyrinth in the late Roman House of Theseus not far from the Paphos theatre excavation, grounded in the earth of the Illawarra.
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania
Unwritten country with fragment of a Roman mosaic
Woven tapestry fragment in linen and silk on canvas with acrylic and gouache,
1m x 2.5m, 1998.
Among the bones, music, wool and linen tapestry fragment, 20cm x 20cm, 1998-2012
Flower for Aphrodite wool and linen tapestry fragment, 20cm x 20cm, 1998-2012