Hannah Cooper

Warping the Weft (after glass) 2023
fishing line, vintage Japanese gold-leaf thread, synthetic metallic embroidery thread
Price: NFS

Albers said, “to be creative is not so much the desire to do something, as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.”

Initially, Hannah wanted to weave a weft of glass rods through a warp of transparent fishing line. Through the weaving process the fishing line did not remain static or stable when removed from the loom’s tension. The material was dictating movement – instead of fighting this, Hannah channelled Anni’s advice, changed her weft and embraced the fluidity of the warp. These experiments have led the artist to a new concept for future projects, embracing a warping of the weft.

Hannah Cooper uses traditional cloth-making techniques to produce domestic textiles, which she believes are deeply under-valued in our daily lives. Production of ‘ordinary’ domestic textiles has influenced Hannah’s artistic weaving, which plays with (and resists) the formal language of geometric abstraction and the structural and creative constraints of weaving. An over-under grid is the basis of all weaving – Hannah’s work is rooted in the ability to emphasise or distort that simple structure – to stay firmly on the grid or move off it.

Hannah started weaving in 2017, teaching herself on a rigid heddle loom and concentrating on the textural possibilities within plain weave. She now weaves on a manual 12-shaft counter-march floor loom, utilising more complex structures. She naturally-dyes thread with plants and insects for use in her artworks.

Hannah is represented in NSW by Jennings Kerr.

Image top: Warping the Weft (after glass) (detail), 2023. Photo: courtesy the artist