Anna Ray
,-2007-(1).jpg "Knot (detail), 2007")
'Knot' is a complex padded structure made up of machine-stitched cotton elements, stuffed with polyester filling. Over one thousand strands are knotted together, with their brightly coloured tips poking out playfully in all directions. The piece was inspired by the colour coding of the metal under-wires in brassieres, the minute coloured pixels that are the building blocks of digital images and the wooden game ‘Pick up Sticks’. The making process began with a series of drawings on paper and on the computer. My aim was that the piece would have no specific focal point, but instead, an intense surface that would hold the eye of the viewer.
'Leave' is a wall piece made of paper, acrylic beads, tape and paint. This piece represents emotional fragility and is evocative of delicate natural forms; feathers and seed pods. Pearl beads are trapped in the leaves of fan-like units, held in place by tape and paint on the surface of paper that has been sliced and strung together.
Anna Ray studied BA (Hons) and MFA Tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art between 1994 and 1999. She became a lecturer in the department soon after graduation and taught for six years before relocating to London in 2006. She was artist in residence at Winterbourne Botanic Garden, University of Birmingham in 2004 and at Frances Bardsley School, Romford, 2006 to 2007.
www.annaray.co.uk