Tabi Hull

Artist Statement

Tabi is an interdisciplinary artist interested in patterns and their associations within contemporary art. Her work aims to recontextualise the contemporary decorative implications of lace by exploring the androgynous and geopolitical nature of lace historically in royal courts. The association of patterns and decorative art with femininity, as seen in wallpapers and the domestic sphere, often leads to it being considered a "craft." Tabi's work challenges this perception by creating patterns using both traditional hand-drawn techniques and digital software. The resulting acrylic lace sculptures expand in space, eliciting the same sensation of transparency and opaqueness found in fabric, thereby blurring the lines between two-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces in a hypnotic fashion. Tabi navigate these themes through titles such as ‘Treason of Charles and Henrietta,’ inspired by the lace worn by the couple, which refers to the "treason" of using patterns in painting according to Clement Greenberg, as well as the historic reference to the treason faced by Charles I in 1694.