BPD: SUZETTE WEARNE

Suzette Wearne embroiders portraits as a way of working a morass of difficult ideas about womanhood, what we hide and what we reveal of ourselves, about inter-generational trauma and a bunch of other first world problems.  An almost compulsive stitching practice keeps her hands busy and her mind at peace.

This body of work, which began in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, sees the artist focussed on the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Inspired by a selection of photos from Britain’s tabloid press, these works respond to a figure who was as beloved by the public for her outward glamour as she was condemned by the establishment and by herself. As Margaret Robson observes ‘to work portraits of Diana in fibre and buttons is beautifully apposite: she became a clothes horse who literally wore herself to a thread.’

The intentionally ambiguous title of the exhibition is an acronym for the viewer’s interpretation. BPD’s laboriously made portraits present ideas about surface-tension, about adoration and self-loathing, and about Wearne’s undying belief in the expressive potential of the button.