Neroli Henderson: Artist Profile

Hi all,

I'm Neroli Henderson and I've just joined the Art Quilts Around The World group and am looking forward to working on my first textile art challenge piece.

Me with the love of my life on my wedding day in 2011. My husband was around somewhere :)

I'm an Australian graphic designer / fine artist who works a lot with textiles. I teach workshops and classes in textile art and quilting, regularly write for textile magazines and my favourite: get paid to talk about my work. Most recently I've been published in several issues of DUT - Down Under Textiles, an Aussie magazine full of textile art tutorials and projects.

I studied Art & Design at TAFE college before going to uni to do a Bachelor of Arts (Graphic Design) in the early 1990's. I then worked as a graphic designer and finally as an art director for Shell. I loved my career choice but a nasty  upper back fracture in 1998 forced me to change the way I work. I now need to play it by ear (back?) on what I can do each day and incorporate movement into my routine. Sitting is no longer something I can do for extended times, especially day in day out.

After the fracture I started doing a lot of oil painting with a painting knife, I could only be upright for a few minutes at a time and was going a bit stir crazy so this was a great way of getting as much paint down as I could in a limited period of time. These sold really well and gave me the impetus I needed to focus more on fine art.

 Two of my early palette knife paintings, both created after my back fracture when I could only stand for a few minutes at a time.

As my sitting ability increased I branched more into the detail work I used to do a lot of, using watercolours and pencil primarily. Finally my Mum introduced me to free-motion sewing and textile art in general by dragging me along to the Australasian Quilting Convention for 4 days of classes with some amazing tutors. This was a huge change for me, I had no idea free-motion sewing could be done on a home machine and learning about some of the modern day techniques and mediums like fusible appliqué, water soluble stabiliser and Tyvek has had a huge effect on my work.

 

Two of my early guache works, both features a lot of detailing. The bricks in Symbiant (left) feature many layers of paint and have hidden messages and pictures within them.

I particularly love the variety of textures, sheen and intensity of colour you can achieve with textiles. Being able to include 3D elements and the tactile nature of fabric and stitch is a huge drawcard for me too. With paint and conventional media I'm limited to the colours and texture of paint or pencil etc -with textiles I can incorporate conventional media without the limitations governed by them.

Here's some of my textile works:

'Bird of Paradise', fusible web based raw edge appliqué, free-motion stitching.

'If a Bean bag and a lava lamp had a love child', fused raw edge appliqué and piecing, double batted, bobbin work and free motion stitching. I designed this piece after looking at a range of quilts by Gloria Loughman and used some of the techniques taught in one of her classes.

'Soul Fishing' fused raw edge appliqué with both cotton and synthetic fabrics, fishing line, metal sheeting (apples) and silk velvet. The sky is hand painted with ink over white on white fabric.

 'Que Sera' 1m x 1m hand painted whole cloth, Shiva sticks, citrus turps, fused organza snippets, acrylic over painting on background and thread painting in figure. I wanted this piece to convey that sometimes, no matter what we strive to achieve the world still swirls around us in it's own way, and there isn't always a whole lot we can do about it.

 I'm not a huge piecer but had this idea for our bed head at home. Improvisational pieced cotton and shot cotton fabrics, stretched over 1" foam and stapled onto an MDF backing board.

 'The end of beauty', this 30cm (12") was created for an autumn themed challenge. My Dad's birthday was at the end of March and this time of year always makes me think of him. He had non-hodgkins lymphoma for the last few years of his life and watching him fade away, but still be as wonderful as ever was something I wanted to get across.
This piece won the beginners section and was my earliest work using soldering iron and heat gun. The leaves are made from solder cut organza, textiva, angelina and hand painted tyvek and the backing is vinyl.

And now for something completely different :) 'Feed the Birds' was comic piece to illustrate an article I was writing for DUT magazine on art elements and principles. It shows how altering just one element (in this case 'scale') can radically change the feeling of a work - if the birds were normal size the picture would lose it's meaning.
1m x 1m  Fused and pieced cottons, hand painted truck branding.

So that's a bit of insight into me and what makes me tick.

You can follow me on Facebook by liking my art page here 

This link takes you directly to the gallery section of my Facebook Page where you can find albums of some of my past paintings, drawing, textile and graphics work.

My blog features lots of tutorials and textile artist interviews here

Or if you love quilting and want to know more about me you can try friending me on Facebook

Comment below to let me know if you have any favourites of the work I've selected, or any questions for me.

Thanks!

Neroli