Jilli Blackwood specialises in the creation of the unpainted painting. She uses embroidery, weaving and hand-dying to create her woven and embroidered paintings, which are enhanced by her unique colour sense and natural yarns and fabrics. Blackwood wishes to create the unexpected and delight the viewer’s eye but ultimately her goal is to question the function of fabric. Her process of art and craft is an intense, complex and time consuming practice; the sense of beauty and symbolic qualities created by the touch of the human hand.
Blackwood believes that her inspiration ‘comes from above like a bolt of lightning; it feels like magic is at work’. She wishes she could say that her inspirational source comes from nature, that would be easier to explain, but this is not how it happens. Instead, she is constantly aware of the relationship between herself and the work, which is an expression of her inner state. Working on two or three pieces at a time, amalgamating the disciplines of embroidery and weave on a single work, is a freeing experience.
