'Ode to Colin Wiggins', in Flight: Drawing Interpretations

‘Ode to Colin Wiggins’
-A project by Andrew Kenny in collaboration with the National Gallery

The National Gallery was founded ‘to give the people an ennobling enjoyment’ and this democratic approach to high-art was something I wanted to explore with this project. My original aim was to find out how people today gained this ‘ennobling enjoyment’ and in particular, how it related to my own specialism of Textiles for Fashion.

To do this I asked my undergraduate textiles students to visit the gallery and pick out two or three paintings that appealed to them. I then filmed them at the gallery talking about what it was that they liked about them and how they inspired their own practice. I was accompanied on these interviews by Colin Wiggins, Head of Education at the NG and asked him to talk to the student and myself about each painting after the interview.

I was stuck not only by Colin’s vast knowledge of the paintings, but also by how he managed to bring each one to life by connecting its story directly to the life in interests of the student. I decided that, as Colin had been such an inspiration, it might be nice to dedicate the project to him and his inspiring narratives of the paintings.

To draw from this research I explored the textile medium of patchwork to represent the storytelling that I found so inspiring. My final piece, entitled ‘Ode to Colin Wiggins’ takes the form of a full-scale embroidered and printed patchwork quilt and brings together many drawings based on the interviews that I conducted.

The process used to drawing the picture of Colin (featured centrally on the quilt) connects the embroidery with the paintings and the history of the paintings with their modern narratives. It was created by subverting the use of a CAD embroidery machine by attaching a paintbrush to the head of a CAD embroidery machine. The needle on the machine is prevented from going down and fabric was replaced in the embroidery hoop by paper which was dragged underneath the paintbrush producing strokes and marks which look like stitches. The embroidered and printed patches around his head, and the magazine in his arms visually represent the stories and narratives for the interviews.

This work was part of a larger project executed by researchers of London College of Fashion’s Drawing Hub in collaboration with the National Gallery over the period of a year. The research was presented at a symposium in May 2013 at LCF and the results of this work and shown in an event at the National Gallery on 14th June 2013.

‘Flight: Drawing Interpretations’ was an exhibition that brought together a group of researchers from London College of Fashion who, over a period of a year, engaged directly with the collection at the National Gallery in London in response to the theme of ‘Flight’. The process of drawing as a means of investigation, of thinking and articulating ideas, played a pivotal role in the development of this research. Late Night Exhibition at the National Gallery showcased this research.

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