She dreamed of a fairyland when she was a child. Now at the age of 36, Su Blackwell has created her own miniature fairyland from books and has brought her art back to her hometown in Sheffield this weekend.
Well-known for her book sculptures, textile works and paper installations, Su Blackwell has been commissioned by museums, businesses and magazines and established a popular art studio in London in 2011.
Blackwell showed her creativity and imagination as a little girl. “There was a wood at the end of our house. I loved playing there and that really shaped my imagination," she said, "I named the trees and built dens and spent a lot of time outside in my make-belief world."
“I always loved reading, specifically Alice in Wonderland and The Secret Garden and I’ve vivid memories of reading and losing myself in stories for children”, said Blackwell, "I think it was a way of escaping to somewhere more magical.”
Blackwell’s encounter with art was merely incidental. She was studying on a manufacturing course when her tutor spotted her talent and recommended her to a textile course. There, she found something she loved doing.
Talking about her early work, Blackwell said “I started off on textiles and doing embroidery. I was interested in making the invisible visible and things about spirituality.
"I made a piece that had word on each surfaces of a box but you could only read them if you shone light through it, so it was kind of exploring these transient things. I was interested in impermanent things and materials that would decay. That was why I started using paper.”
"I made a piece that had word on each surfaces of a box but you could only read them if you shone light through it, so it was kind of exploring these transient things. I was interested in impermanent things and materials that would decay. That was why I started using paper.”
In 2003, Blackwell went to Southeast Asia after graduating from The Royal College of Art in London. Her time in Asia co-incided with her father’s death and intrigued her contemplation for life and death, and gave her a unique taste for the beauty of impermanence and decay. She started her art with a book bought in a second-hand book shop in Thailand.
In 2010, commissioned by the Bronte Parsonage Museum, Blackwell created the “Remenants”, a paper illustrated life and work of the Bronté's.
“I had known the House when I was a student in Bradford, but I had never been into the house. Then when I was given a talk like this in 2009, the art officer from the Bronté Parsonage Museum said ‘would you be interested in doing something with us next year?’ It turned out amazing,” said Blackwell.
“I spent quite a long time walking around and sitting with the supposedly ‘haunted house’, but to be honest I didn’t feel any of those ghostly happenings. It seemed like a very calm house, but I did want to make reference to the history of objects of the Brontes, so I sort of played with the idea of the house being haunted and put my work in the context. For example, I put a motor in a book, so it turned the page automatically. You could be looking at it and suddenly the page would turn. That had some mixed reactions: And some Japanese tourists ran out screaming”, laughed Blackwell.
For Blackwell, paper is a definite enjoyment. Fairly tales and folklores are powerful inspirations. At the same time, she created a lot of commercial work for companies such as British Airway and Volvo.
“I set up the studio to work on the commercial work and I kept the fine art practice going on. They kind of feed into one another and sometimes there’s a crossover. But it is important to have time in the studio on my own for at least one or two days. When the commercial work comes in, the deadlines are usually very short and they are not one after another. I usually have a gap in between where I focus on my own work. They run side by side”, said Blackwell.
The artist is now working on an exhibition in Chatsworth House.
by Chloe Chen
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