Michelle Abbott

At the basic core of my work is what it means to be human. What connects us, what disconnects us; what makes us and what breaks us. And a love of colour, of escapism and of the non objective to create something else.

I used to be a painter (non objective large scale canvasses using oil and resin). In 2009, whilst I was working with the concept of connections, I started incorporating threads into the work as paint just wasn’t the right medium. With threads I started sewing concepts together and the strings became my pencils, my colours, my forms.

What I didn’t know then, and only discovered later in 2013, is that I descend from a long line of tailors, silk winders and seamstresses from the East End of London 1815, where sweat shops first flourished and 34000 tailors resided in 1861.

It seems sewing is in my DNA, generations of my family have worked with threads. As my fascination with these materials started with a series of works based on connections, my tiny marbles literally blew away with this discovery, and threads have been my chosen medium ever since.

In 2022 I received the ACE DYCP maximum award to research further into my heritage of Victorian Tailors of London’s East End. This has propelled my work into new ways of using threads, creating more concept based installations and cementing my love and use of threads in all that I create.

I predominantly work on 3 ongoing series - each with a different use of threads  - in traditional sewing ways, as a medium in their own right challenging more traditional concepts of arts vs crafts and painterly applications, and in more sculptural forms.