Redcar Palace is delighted to present a solo exhibition of rag rugs and sculptural works by Northumbria based artist Britney Fraser. Ney Botha Hen will open on Saturday 6th July 2024 with a private view from 12-3pm, the exhibition will then run until Saturday 31st August 2024.
Britney first showed work with Redcar Palace in our 2023 exhibition ‘Thread Counts’, and has remained a friend of the gallery since then, running workshops and demonstrating her rag rug knowledge to new audiences. Ney Botha Hen will give visitors the chance to experience past and present works alongside a new large scale rug commission that incorporates a sea shanty by Saltburn based writer Carmen Marcus, focusing on how fishing boats in Redcar are made.
Rag rugs are used by Britney to explore her upbringing, the dialects, the colloquialisms and the familiar and cultural voices that surround her. Her choice of fabrics and other materials further represent Britney’s Northeast heritage and the mining communities around Northumberland, utilising everyday textiles like towels, dishcloths, and tarpaulin. With these materials she also speaks of the domesticity and the undervalued labour associated with it.
The text based rugs in the exhibition are part of a series titled ‘In Conversation’, which ‘comments on the way others talk and use dialect to express themselves’. Britney’s work is both very personal and very open, and these text pieces create conversations between themselves, shouting, insulting, empowering each other and investigating themes of tension, betrayal and the bonds of family with select pieces using her family’s handwriting to capture the phrases.
The ‘Shadow’ pieces explore ‘the idea of working class voices being suppressed and unheard’. Each piece is created by outlining found shadows, developing into abstracted rag rug insights into the domestic environments that surround her.
Britney graduated from Newcastle university with a BA in Fine Art in 2023, and has since shown work across the country, extending the reach of rag rugs further afield. ‘Prog-Crastination’ showcases selected pieces from her degree, reflecting on how her current material choices are based on early experimental decisions.
Come join us on Saturday 6th July for a chance to chat to Britney and learn more about her practice.
Redcar Palace is an arts venue on the Redcar seafront which emerged during the pandemic and as a space to rethink how an arts organisation can build relations with the people around it through our exhibitions, workshops and our honesty shop featuring work by over 60 locally based creatives. Tees Valley Arts joined the Arts Council National Portfolio programme in April 2023.
Redcar Palace is open 10am-4pm, Tuesday-Saturday.