Lise Hobcroft

Single Use Series 2023

Plant, Paper, Plastic
lomandra, cottolin
Price: $290

Plant, Paper, Plastic
eri silk, paper string
Price: $220

Plant, Paper, Plastic
eri silk, single use plastic bags
Price: $160

When writing about textiles as serving objects, Anni Albers wrote (Fabrics; Arts and Architecture, 1948). “While it takes an analytical mind to clarify a problem of usefulness, it takes an imaginative mind to find a solution. We will have good designs if we find a balance, not drab utility, but an inventive answer to a practical demand combined with an imaginative use of aesthetic values.”

Single Use Series: Plant, Paper, Plastic, offers sustainable, reusable solutions to single use plastic bags, often greenwashed with slogans like ‘I’m a keeper’ on throw-away bag designs. Weaving three individual bags Lise utilises the materials as referenced in the works titles; lomandra an Australian native plant; paper string; and torn plastic bags; are woven amongst cotton or silk to form the finished works.

Lise Hobcroft works across a variety of textiles and fibre art practices, including hand-woven domestic textiles, basketry, knotted rope works and large scale woven public art installations. The predominant themes in her work explore sustainability, repurposing and reusing waste, and the use of native Australian flora and fauna. Lise completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts and Bachelor of Teaching from University of New England. She has been a regular finalist in Sydney’s Greenway Art Prize, Northern Beaches Environmental Art and Design Prize and the Sustainable Waste Art Prize. Lise works under the label lidi gradan studio on Wangal Country in Sydney.

Image top: Lise Hobcroft, (weaving in progress), eri silk noil and paper string on loom, 2023. Photo: courtesy the artist