Puns galore for Kate Jenkins' latest show at Rebecca Hossack Gallery. And yes, it is art, says Kate Weir.
Crocheting intensely detailed replicas of Dairylea slices sounds like the kind of thing you do before trying to kill your whole family because only you know they’re hyper-intelligent kittens in human costumes; but when it comes to art and all its peccadilloes, this logic could be applied to 90% of its bizarre endeavours (I’m looking at you Manzoni). So rendering items you’d usually find in your fridge in crochet looks delightfully whimsical and charming by comparison.
Artist Kate Jenkins has set up ‘Kate's Crochet Market’ at Rebecca Hossack Gallery on Charlotte Street, a delightful collection of knittables from the most prolific set of crochet hooks around. It’s all rather adorable. Even leaving aside the fact that there's a pick-and-mix sweets bar and free wine (my favourite things! How did she know?) there are many things here I could see hanging on my wall – a knitted pork pie filled with little pigs; a little can of worms filled with the kind of smiley worms you see on Sesame Street; and French fries wearing berets and pencil moustaches. This is all before you reach the jars of penny sweets and the sparkly section, where sardines, glittery prawns and tins of ‘Stitch-jack Tuna’ (geddit) are rendered in glorious sequin-vision. Stand-out pieces include bold and colourful depictions of Ketchup (‘stitch-up’), Heinz Beans (‘with tomato stitches’) and Campbell’s ‘crocheted’ Tomato Soup.
Jenkins’ work could be dismissed as overpriced folk art, which belongs on Etsy rather than the gallery wall. But they're lifted to the level of fine art by a combination of pop art sensibility (Haven’t I seen that soup can somewhere before?), David Shrigley-esque wit, Tracey Emin’s textile sensibility, and the elevation of banal everyday objects and appreciation of packaging design that Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy series employs. The eye-watering detail and innovation apparent in these pieces more than justifies a hefty price tag; and the collection is so vast that you do wonder if Jenkins can get through a meal without crocheting something.
With urban knitting collectives such as Knitta Please producing a nice selection of bollard balaclavas, artists such as Sara Applebaum creating geodesic knits, knitting tents springing up at festivals and a resurgence of the WI amongst girls who like to reminisce about the hairpins and teacakes of Britain’s bloodiest era; Jenkins is spearheading a popular craft niche, and helped to make a technique, which was previously the domain of Grannies and excited kittens, hip again. The fact that people are cooing over these clever masterpieces more than the pick and mix is all the evidence this critic needs.
Kate's Crochet Market is at Rebecca Hossack until 24th September 2011.
Read Tom's review of Kate's Cafe at Rebecca Hossack Gallery, June 2009.
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