Jules Findley Artist and Lecturer in Fashion Promotion and Imaging at UCA

Bereavement

Ripped Apart

Biography:

Jules Findley’s practice emerges through looking at domestic issues and finding areas that are taboo, asking questions and through her artwork raises public awareness of solutions to domestic crises. Work has included research into self-harm and more recently bereavement. The studies in bereavement have led to questioning in-depth areas of contemporary funeral rites, as well as sensitively exploring child death and how mothers carry the grief of their loved one forward and return to life.

Jules Findley FRSA, studied Fashion and Textiles at Liverpool John Moores University, graduating with a First Class honours. After many years in the fashion industry, and film post production, she is a lecturer and Course Leader in Fashion Promotion and Imaging at University for the Creative Arts (UCA) Epsom. Jules Findley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is a Member of Dying Matters.

Continuing her research, ideas from the wider context of domesticity are conceptually formed through questions and answers that involve research quantitatively or in reaction to qualitative research. Addressing sensitive issues and not necessarily being satisfied with the outcomes that are presented through literature, politics or media. Work is generated through mixed methods methodologies using a critical framework that can be cross-disciplined, and cross-cultural. The work is usually but not exclusively from a fashion and textiles grounding. Through questioning and process of enquiry what’s produced are not necessary the answers, but explore implicit possibilities so that the viewer has an opportunity to take up the discussion and interact through information or reaction. The aim is to draw the public’s attention and generate wider awareness to such issues.

Through collaboration with other artists such as Alice Kettle, and individual initiatives, new work emerges for exhibition, public interaction and examining sensitive issues to be discussed.

Recent research is in the area of Bereavement and Loss.

Exhibitions:
Eight installations of new artwork are being produced for an Exhibition at Chichester Cathedral in February 2012 in collaboration with Alice Kettle. Alice Kettle and Jules Findley explore the subject of loss using a variety of media and informed by their own individual experiences of loss. Alice Kettle uses the impact of global events such as the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, as her subjects. She utilises them as symbols of the human condition in conflict, disaster and rebirth. She uses stitched panels and ceramic works made in collaboration with Alex McErlain, to portray the loss of land, the loss of landscape and the loss of life. The works are however optimistic in focus, as they also examine renewal and rediscovery.

Jules Findley makes pieces that have significant meaning, the white stitched curtain, the knitted babies clothes in black, the blanket, relics of domesticity now torn apart. There is also an interactive installation where the public are encouraged to post a loss. The haptic nature of the cloth touching the back of the hand when posting the loss, will give the public a sensation of intimacy with the exhibit and highlight the value of touch.

Exhibition “LOSS” by Jules Findley in collaboration with Alice Kettle, at Chichester Cathedral North Transept, February 18th - March 29th 2012
http://www.lossandlove.co.uk

View my website http://www.julesfindley.com/