Phoebe Singzon
I specialise in woven textiles and use my love of slow processes to explore form, colour and material. Through my work, I communicate my own experiences through visual language as a way of connection with others.
I specialise in woven textiles and use my love of slow processes to explore form, colour and material. Through my work, I communicate my own experiences through visual language as a way of connection with others.
This project focused on my own reclamation of the word ‘queer’ as an exploration of identity, creating an immersive fantasy realm through woven textile forms.
I play with the definitions of ‘queer’ to create a story which is driven from my love of storytelling as a way of connection and activism.
The evolution of my own identity overtime is showcased through sculptural forms that viewers can walk through to ‘take a walk inside my mind’.
My main inspirations came from poetry written by Sappho – a Greek poet in the early seventh century – who often described women as being adorned with flowers. This led me to look at the queer symbolism associated with flowers and the language of flowers. Roses are universally known as flowers symbolising love and green carnations became popularised as a queer symbol by Oscar Wilde. Flowers embody hidden meaning and provide a gateway for me to use flowers as a way of communicating my queer identity with visual language.
From this, I used painting, drawing and paper marbling to influence my woven forms, exploring texture, form ,and colour.
My main focus for my woven pieces is their materiality. I use silks alongside high-twist yarns to create movement and texture within woven forms.
Weaving is only a part of my process. When taken off the loom, samples are transformed further with finishing processes like steaming and hot-washing to create textured material for textile sculpture.
Inspired by the emotional process felt through losing a loved one, I wanted to create a collection that sparked conversation on the topic of grief. For me, I found that my grief was a manifestation of the love I held for the people I have lost. To reflect this idea of transformation, I experimented with using active and passive yarns to create woven samples that changed with finishing processes when off the loom.
