Banners of Persuasion

Modern artists are finding a new voice in the ancient art of tapestry By Vanessa Barneby

“Were a tapestry a talking cat.” says artist Francesca Lowe, “it would mew the same two sentences seductively whilst licking its limbs: ‘You can look, but don’t touch,’ and ‘Owning me courts reverence.” It’s a cryptic image, especially because when you mention the word tapestry to most people, it conjures up visions of castle walls hung with battle scenes, and words such ac dreary and antiquated spring to mind. For Chris and Suzanne Sharp, however, this misconception fuelled a desire to prove that tapestry were ripe for reinvention, and could indeed be as captivating as a talking cat. In November, the couple, known for their hugely successful Rug Company, launch their new roving gallery, Banners of Persuasion, with an exhibition of tapestries by contemporary artists, titled Demons, Yarns and Tales.

“We always thought it would be interesting to do something with artists,” says Chris Sharp, “but rugs are a difficult medium because the knot count is so restrictive. With tapestries, the fineness of the weave means you can translate almost anything.” Realising that medieval tapestries were designed by artists but made by craftsmen, the Sharps thought it would be interesting to do the same, and so they commissioned 15 artists to take part.

The final line up, including Grayson Perry, Kara Walker, Gary Hume, Julie Verhoeven, Paul Noble, Gavin Turk and Francesca Lowe, reads like a hot list of contemporary art. “We were amazed at how willing the artists were to get involved,” says Sharp. “It’s not only a whole new medium for them, but it means letting go of their work — handing it over to someone else.”

Three years in the making, the tapestries address subjects ranging from flora and fauna to fashion, fictional landscapes and architectural abstraction. Some are light hearted, while others address race, conflict and the environment. Some artists came up with new pieces of work; others, such as Paul Noble, took existing work and adapted it.

With each one came a new set of challenges or the weavers. For Noble’s design, villa joe a 4.5 sq m masterpiece, which spent more than a year on the loom — at least 50 different shades of grey thread were used to replicate his minutely detailed pencil drawing of Nobson Newtown, a fictional city complete with shopping mall, hospital, cemetery and rock piles, with a clear nod to Henry Moore. According to Sharp, when Noble saw the finished work, he stared at it for an hour, repeating: “I’m blown away, blown away!”

Grayson Perry, meanwhile, describes his banner as “a folk artefact from the age of 24-hour news”. Like a modern-day Bayeux Tapestry it features images of global terrorism — Osama bin Laden, the Twin Towers — and invites us to “Vote Alan Measles [his much- loved childhood teddy bear] for God”. “I drew it with the limitations of the medium very much in mind,” Perry says. “I love the way they have copied even the tiny missed pixels of colour from when I was colouring in my design on the computer.”

Julie Verhoeven was equally impressed with the weavers’ work. The design — featuring her trademark girls among a collage of doves, deer and unicorns—has been captured beautifully in the tapestry. Even the ink spills, added by Verhoeven as an afterthought, are perfectly replicated.

Two naked men locked in combat form the focal point of Francesca Lowe’s tapestry, taken from a painting she was working on when the Sharps approached her. The original painting was soft and floaty, but this changed when she flipped the colours for the tapestry “What was light I made dark, and what was dark I made light,” she says. “This all gave it a curious masculinity, which I found strange because when you think about tapestry, you think about feminine things.”

Perhaps that was once the case, but these works of art turn preconceptions on their head. “That’s the strange thing,” says Lowe. “It’s almost old fashioned because of the weight and history of it, but it’s like a pixellated antiquity. There’s a pixellated lyricism that’s unique to a tapestry — the little beats all in rows, like digital music or something.”

• “Demons, Yarns and Tales” runs from November 10—22 at The Dairy, WC1. For more information, call 020 7243 7345