Alice Thompson

Knitted Items

Clockwise from left:
‘Spiral Staircase’, Lambswool, 200 x 240 mm, 2020.
The Birth of Aphrodite, Lambswool, 180 x 180 mm, 2020.
Face masks, Lambswool and Knitted Elastic, 180 x 140 mm, 2020.
Nan Goldin - Self Portrait in Kimono with Brian, NYC (1983), Lambswool, 180 x 140 mm, 2020.

I began to make these knitted drawings over lockdown using the intarsia technique. I hadn’t really explored this in my practice, which is knitting, but I had some ideas for drawings I wanted to revisit and certain imagery that I was drawn to. For example, the staircase that I keep coming back to, I like the idea of levels, the rhythm and motion that is evoked from a staircase. I made some works for friends in mind and some face masks as things began to open again and we made our way outside again.

The work with two figures are from the artist Nan Goldin’s work, ‘Self Portrait in Kimono with Brian, NYC', from 1983. I was contributing to a project started by my friend Reece Higham to raise money for Pride Month in July, specifically for a LGBTQI+ charity called Micro Rainbow. When thinking how to make this work, I was inspired particularly by the use of lighting and broken up colours, so I separated out the photograph into three colours.