To work with wool is to entangle yourself in its threads - Jess Swney’s tufted rug ‘paintings’ working as a manifestation of her hands - each stitch acting as a mark of care, time and self. Embracing the subtleties of flaw and human presence behind each work to discuss self-discovery, unconscious biases and vulnerability. 

Holding a First Class Honour in Fine Arts from Massey University, the Tāmaki Makaurau based artist is grounded in an intergenerational connection to textiles, as she floats between abstraction and realism. Creating a softness with wool tufted illustrations depicted in a deep, bold colour palette, that simultaneously reminisce on the tradition of textile craft, while concurrently using it to speak to contemporary womanhood. How we face society, and how society faces back to us.