Heather Dunn
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  • Artist Statement
  • Bio
  • Exhibitions
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Gallery of works.

The Corona Virus restrictions pushed this exhibition On Line, as Galleries in New South Wales were closed during the first half of 2020.  It was a tough time for the industry, and it meant that this exhibition didn't see the light of day.
​All works are woven on a cotton warp and use natural dyed wool and silk, natural coloured wild silk, commercially dyed silk and wool, commercially dyed cotton and found yarns.
All the tapestries are ready to hang, framed in box frames, under glass.

​For all enquiries to purchase works, please email me. Thank you.

Horizon Line series
This train of thought is an ongoing fascination with the horizon, with what leads up to it and speculating with what’s beyond.  At this stage the work is small scale, but may lead to further investigation as the ideas flow.
When I worked at sea in the 1980’s on merchant ships, the horizon line was a constant companion, a linear definition of the world around us.  Sometimes it merged into the sea, as grey clouds dulled the blue of the ocean, other times it drew a line between the reflections of clouds on a glassy sea.  Watch this story, it’s not finished yet.
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Little Gems
This trio of Tapestry are the in-betweens.  Series sometimes take a while to emerge.  I can’t stop weaving though so these are some that punctuate longer stories.  “Bald Hill Hill End” is a small postcard to Hill End that was exhibited with BRAG to celebrate 20 years of Artist in Residence at Hill End.
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Corrugations
I see patterns everywhere, and these 2 tapestries are the observations of burnt and old corrugated iron.  The repetition and rhythm of these were mesmerising to weave and I hope look at.
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Flora Sensa
These Tapestries were woven in response to a brief for a group show, which went by the same name.  The premise of the show, was our emotional response to flowers.  I settled on the resilience and sheer impact of the Sturts Dessert Pea.  Common across the arid regions of Australia, its showy flowers are what I seek out when I return to visit the Pilbara every year.  The tapestries show the flowers but also where they grow, both on the Burrup Peninsula and further inland.  In this series I have played with pixilation thinking about how we view the world now, often through the lens of the digital camera in our phones. 
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Landlines
​This series is on-going.  When I draw the landscape, I am drawn to the physical underpinning of what I see, without trees or structures to clutter up the undulations and fractures in the land forms before me.  I speculate where rolling hills go, and mark these with dotted lines.  I like to have a pared down palette in these works, relying on natural colours of wild silk, or perhaps natural dyed yarns.  These works pop up in between other stories, kind of like moments of introspection, before I forge on.  The designs for these works are nearly always drawn en plein air.  This style of landscape featured in my work from my previous exhibition here called “Hidden in Plein View”, which were a survey of the landscape around the Blue Mountains.

Hill End
This series of Tapestries tells the story of my work and residency in Hill End.  Hill End is a gold rush era village, now a living museum, and the site for a long running Artist in Residency program run by the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.  Artists have had a connection with Hill End since the 1940’s, and the energy in this village and surrounding landscape is palpable.
The Tapestries on show are woven using wool that I dyed from dye stuffs found along the roadsides and in the common around Hill End.  The resulting colours reflected the palettes of artists that had gone before me, and I was amazed at the synergy of these pigments and what artists see.  I also use natural coloured wild silk in the weaving and the odd bit of gold thread.
The disturbed ground around Hill End fascinated me and I found myself drawing these compact landscapes again and again, so they are reflected in the works you see here.  Like the rest of NSW, the drought has wreaked havoc on the bush surrounding Hill End, but in a stark way that’s arresting as well.
©  Heather Dunn 2020-2021. All Rights Reserved. 
O'Connell NSW 2795 Australia
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Website by Short Mac Sessions