This is a trilogy devoted to antique lace.

The first book is of outlines of lace patterns; in the second, the outlines have been cut away by hand; in the third, the outlines have been screen-printed back in grey. This work attempts to explore the intricate, open texture of antique lace and the structure of light and shadow.

I was influenced by the writer Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows and its argument that the Japanese aesthetic revels in the dark and the dimly lit. I wanted to illuminate this insight through close study of a Western art form, the culture of lace-making in 18th and 19th century Europe. The work is a testament to, and an exploration of, the labour of hand-making and of the transient and transformative nature of handicrafts and of shadows both.