ALICE BLACKSTOCK
Fish out of water (salmon)
Fish out of water (brown trout)
- Machine knitted cotton and linen, metal and rope -
LOCATION NO. 1 : The Noah Donohoe Bridge/ Lagan Gateway Bridge
‘Fish out of water’ makes visible the unseen world beneath the surface of the Lagan river. The brown trout and salmon are two of the most prominent dwellers of the Lagan waterways at this time of year. They lurk out of sight, watching from below and rise when flies and larvae land on the river making ripples on its smooth surface. Represented in textiles, a medium which has a long history in Belfast, this work offers the opportunity for to see the invisible and consider their world compared to our own.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Alice Blackstock is a practicing textile artist and educator from Belfast. She works at London South East Colleges as an adult community learning textile tutor. Her work solidifies the fleeting. She crafts tangible imagery with the simple desire to observe, be responsive and capture a moment in time. Drawn to the overlooked and invisible, Alice uses drawing, painting and textiles as tools to tell personal narratives. ‘Fish out of water’ is part of a larger body of work called ‘Can you draw a river?’ which sees Alice collaborating with those who have dementia. Together they are weaving a representation of a river based on a drawing by Alice’s late father who had dementia. In doing this work Alice is working in partnership with Drawing Voices a charity that brings artists and communities together to share experiences while creating artworks. This work will be displayed in The Drawing Room London from October-December 2024.