Phoebe Hudson

(b.1996) I have just completed MA Painting at the Royal college of Art in London (2022). Before this, I studied BA Drawing and Printmaking and the University of the West of England in Bristol (2019). Community based, outdoors and collaborative projects form an important focus in my practice that I continue to grow and expand on.

Statement

My work responds to patterns, rhythm and order formed by intricate workings in our natural environment. My current research is rooted in microbial relationships, understanding them as connective tissue between mind, gut, flesh, soil, life and decay. I look at the inherent physicality, collaboration and ritual of traditional processes such as weaving, felting or paper making and how these can serve as a means of slowing down and realigning to natural cycles. I am interested in what we can learn from these networks of threads, fibres, cells and spores - a process of picking apart, dissecting, reassembling, fusing, stitching together, in order to better understand, readjust and reimagine our relationship to material and matter.

To me the grid is an important structure. An interlacing of line in which objects, information, plotting or reference points can be viewed and situated in relation to one another. Throughout our existence we have used diagrams, geometric forms and pattern to try and make sense and order of our place in the world. They serve as a place to store or exchange information. Records of places, people, environment and time. Navigating the emergence of patterns, repetition, order or rhythmic cycles. My work considers the instinctive draw we have to this visual language and its capabilities to impact optical and cognitive function. They are consistently used as a basis for composition in my practice, forming an intricate study of the interaction of colour, line, surface and edge - vibration, conflict and harmony between, and disruption of these elements. Like diagrammatical communication networks. Individual elements crossing paths, sharing information, creating new pathways and interactions.