Sheila Hicks has pioneered using fibre as a sculptural material and explored its potential to examine colour, form and texture. This book, published to accompany the exhibition Off Grid at The Hepworth Wakefield, features new site-specific works that build on ideas and motifs established throughout Hicks’s 70-year career.
Wakefield, UK, 2022
Publication
Sheila Hicks weaving on a backstrap loom, near Mitla, Mexico, 1960.
The richly pigmented cover cloth is cut flush on the edges, revealing the threads of construction over time. The bold custom typography is screenprinted to the cloth’s surface so that it appears to weave into the material.
Off Grid takes on a generous format, reflecting the monumental, room-filling scale of Hicks’s works exhibited at the galleries, and the careful proportion of the images echoes the artist’s own sensitivity to space. The relationship between work and architecture is explored further through an interview between Hicks and The Hepworth Wakefield’s architect, David Chipperfield.
Case Study Section
Tall, narrow inserts are used as chapter dividers, with text running along the warp lines. Each divider is annotated with a small sketch from Hicks’s extensive archive of notebooks. Within chapters, text is set in a single column spanning the full height of the page, echoing the form of the artist’s floor-to-ceiling artworks. Imagery and notations move off the grid to create unexpected textural interventions.
Installation photography: Thomas Adank
Book photography: Ed Park
Forged iron eel spears, taken from one of Sheila Hicks’ notebooks.
‘A Practice for Everyday Life is a studio that’s remarkable for the way in which it combines clarity with innovation. It offers a uniquely holistic approach at a time when form matters just as much as content.’
Mark Rappolt Editor-in-Chief, ArtReview
