An intricately hand-embroidered art installation exploring lost love is one of 380 works on display at Annual 14 – a showcase of art, design and digital media by UNSW Art & Design graduating students which opens on Tuesday, 25 November.

Dial M for Me, an installation by Bachelor of Fine Arts honours student Joy Ivill, incorporates embroidery, applique and electronics to tell the personal story of the artist's troubled first relationship, the result of traumatic events in her childhood.

The installation recreates Ivill's childhood lounge room complete with an embroidered chair, lamp and wall adorned with embroidered handkerchiefs revealing the artists life story. Visitors are invited to dial an old Bakelite phone to hear Ivill voicing the stories depicted in the installation.

Describing the acutely honest work as 'confessional art', Ivill said creating Dial M for Me was a cathartic process after teaching herself to embroider from a book she found in the op-shop.

"My honours thesis investigates the relationship between early life trauma and the perpetual search for catharsis – I find a release through my art," said Ivill.

"Embroidery is traditionally seen as a medium associated with femininity and the domestic domain, but for me it provides the perfect landscape to be subversive."

Combining intricately stitched images with poignant and humorous text Ivill said the work aims to "charm, unsettle, surprise and challenge preconceptions of traditional needlework".

Ivill is already represented by M Contemporary Gallery in Woollahra and will take up a three-month artist's residency at Takt studio in Berlin next year.

The Annual is known for launching the next generation of leading fine artists, media artists and designers. The large-scale exhibition encompasses the remarkable range and diversity of UNSW Art & Design's graduating students.

"The Annual exhibition continues to be a highlight of Sydney's art, media and design calendar. These exhibitions and screenings offer industry, practitioners and audiences the chance to preview work by the artists and designers who have already begun changing the way we see, experience, collaborate and share creativity and culture," said Professor Ross Harley, Dean, UNSW Art & Design.

For the first time this year, Master of Art Administration students have curated a themed exhibition Mapping/Melting.

Presented in the recently launched UNSW Galleries, Mapping/Melting explores themes of mapping and convergence, tracing a world where parameters are constantly in flux, form is ruptured, and identity is endlessly reconfigured.

This year's exhibition, displayed in multiple locations across UNSW Art & Design's Paddington campus, features ceramics, drawing, digital imaging, graphics, interactive media, jewellery, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, sound and textiles.

At the Annual 14 screening at the Chauvel Cinema, students will present 3D animation, 2D animation, video dramas and documentaries, and experimental screen-based artworks.

Numerous UNSW Art & Design graduates have gone on to high-profile careers. They include: Mikala Dwyer, Adam Cullen, Abi Alice, Jonathan Jones, Shaun Gladwell, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Clinton Nain, Janet Laurence, Brook Andrew, Trent Jansen, Bronwyn Oliver and the team from Dinosaur Designs.

Official exhibition opening: Tuesday, 25 November, 6–8pm | Exhibition dates: 26 November – 6 December, 10am–5pm Location: UNSW Art & Design Paddington Campus, Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd, Paddington

ANNUAL 14 Screening: Friday 28 November, 6pm, Chauvel Cinema 249 Oxford Street Paddington

RSVP: Through Facebook - please visit "Annual 14"

Media contact: Fran Strachan, UNSW Media Office, 9385 8732, 0429 416 070

 

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Joy Ivill's embroidered art aims to "charm, unsettle and surprise".

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