International Art Textile Biennale

20 January - 18 March 2023

Opening event 5.30pm Friday 20 January   | All welcome FREE

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Winners Announced at East Gippsland Art Gallery

Lakes Entrance-based artist, Josephine Jakobi was the major prize winner at this year's International Art Textile Biennale for an intriguing work titled, The Huntsman and I, made from spider egg cases, cotton and perspex.

Josephine spoke of this work, “We are not alone. The makers of fine textiles in the more than human world have been perfecting their skills for longer than I can imagine. As I walk in the forest at my home, I find the spider’s egg cases, white among the brown of the forest floor. Strong, densely woven, these little packets are the basis for this collaboration with the Huntsman.”

Josephine Jakobi has evolved into one of this region's most prolific and significant artists. Her art ranges from delicate needlecraft crochets to botanical sketches and foraged sculptures depicting the lace patterning, fractal formations, and intelligently engineered designs of the natural world. It also resembles the weaving, nests, trails, and markings of spiders, birds, and insects.

The winners were announced at the opening of International Art Textile Biennale exhibition. Judge Sue Wood said, "The artists in this show use textile materials, processes, and sensibilities to explore a range of contemporary concerns, both personal and political. The works engage with questions of social justice, environmental concerns, the challenges of living in an increasingly fractured and unstable world. Nothing is off limits. For a maker, the medium of textiles offers unlimited opportunities for expression: colour, texture, multiple ways of working. I think you can see the pleasures of making in the works around you”.

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The winner of the International Excellence Award was Katherina Sommer (Germany) for the work, Mug Women II. The Australian Excellence Award went to Brenda Livermore for her work, Firebrand. The Glenys Mann Award of Excellence went to Claudia Mazzotta (Australia) for the work, Stitching as registration: labouring over maternal care.

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Sue Wood, congratulated Glenys Mann and Fibre Arts Australia for their vision in establishing the International Art Textile Biennale and East Gippsland Art Gallery for supporting that vision. “So many exciting arts initiatives originate in regional centres, perhaps because we are so willing to take risks. It is also great to see the number of venues the Biennale will travel to. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase art textiles to a broad audience."  said Sue