Lynley CAMPBELL
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Title: 25850
Medium: tannin and mude dyed, hand felted woollen batt and raw fleece Dimensions: 196 x 60 cm The title of my work is 25850. This is the soldier identification number of a previously unknown family relative who I discovered when researching family history from WW1. He was 19 years old when he died missing in action in the Battle of Passchendaele October 1917. This battle was fought in horrendous conditions with an estimated 475,000 causalities on both sides. He has no known grave but is commemorated at Tyne Cot Memorial along with the names of 34,887 soldiers from the UK and NZ forces killed in action after 16 August 1917 until the end of WW1 who have no known grave. I used woollen batts and raw fleece which was hand felted then eco dyed with tannin and mud. These materials were used because felt is an ancient burial cloth and WW1 soldiers’ uniforms were made of wool. Mud and tannin dyes were used to reflect burial in the earth and the mud of the battlefields. Joseph Beuys was an influence as he worked in felt and his art work was grounded in psychology, social philosophy and politics. Lynley Campbell is a felt artist who was born in New Zealand but is now living and working in Albany, Western Australia. She is passionate about fibre and felt making and loves the trans formative process of changing wool fibres into 3D sculptural forms. |