Knots

Sea Knot 2, spit bite and aquatint

Etched, dry point; stamped; relief prints and a fascination with knots and their language.

Ashley’s Book of Knots is a tome of common and obscure knots, illustrated, and recorded as a history of, and working manual for, knots and ropes. The anthropomorphic descriptions are visceral and suggestive. For example: a Shroud-laid rope has four strands and a heart - the ends are whipped. This evocative and provocative text became a point of interest for me, an exploration using language as a starting point.

Untitled, drypoint, stamping

In the catalogue essay for the exhibition Maritime, Tess Horwitz describes this fascination:

Barbara McConchie has delved into Ashley’s book [Ashley’s Book of Knots] to find names for knots that evoke meanings beyond functionality and suggest human emotions and relationships. Knot terminology such as a '“snug hitch” and “sister yarns” allude to the formation of entwined relationships. Other names such as “constrictor knots” and “the shroud knot” connote the negative sides of relationship; the struggle between two separate identities, the losses involved in forming a unit. By using a variety of printmaking techniques that suggest sensuousness and struggle, hard and soft, McConchie uses surface properties to express the layering of meanings within the works.