Anne Kelly // Well Travelled

A patchwork of memories, making, travel and textiles by Anne Kelly.

In Anne’s hands, scraps of fabric, bits and bobs, images and ideas are combined and transformed. The resulting multi-layered and densely stitched embroideries which have been described as ‘small worlds’.

These small worlds are often a kind of travel diary. Travel in the sense of trains, boats and planes, but also travel in the sense of personal journeys over time and through history.

Anne derives immense joy and inspiration from new places and new people. She keeps many sketchbooks, wherein she collects bits and pieces, images and ideas. But when making her work she likes to start with a piece of fabric – even a scrap – and build on that.

She is a collector (if not a hoarder) of textile related flotsam and jetsam. But she also collects memories; of places she has visited in person, and also places and scenes she has visited in exhibitions, in books and films.

Anne’s work reminds us that the mind keeps travelling, regardless of what our bodies are doing.

This exhibition invites you to step into Anne’s ‘small worlds’ and join her to celebrate memories of travelling.