Cheryl Hutchens
15 Hearts
This work comprised analogies of 15 real living hearts. Using water displacement of the fist I approximated the anatomical measurements of the hearts of 15 live subjects. The weight was measured out in salt and bundled up in hanging cotton pouches. The idea was that viewers could gently lift the pouches to get a sense of holding a human heart. These tactile experiences offering a new and different experience of one’s body.
Organic Intimacy
This series of embroideries was made for a group show titled Organic Intimacy, curated by Sara Lindsay. They depict human white blood cells with all the fascinating detail of the microscopic image rendered in stitch. Using a limited colour palette, I was experimenting with how different stitches could be used to depict the varied textures of the cell anatomy.
Graduation work
These works were the outcome of my Honours course. The series was titled 'Stitching the Electric Meat' and endeavored to create tactile sculptures of unfathomable anatomical concepts as a way to experience the physical body in different way to our usual experience of being a body.
One work is analogous to the size and weight of the skin of one arm and hand, another is a long squishy tape measuring the long length of the human alimentary canal, and the other documented here measures out my own body weight in portable kilos of salt.
Break, suffer, heal
This series of works grew from an investigation into the idea of the effect of illness on one's sense of self. These embroidery works depict virus and bacteria cells, something so tiny that can cause such pain and suffering to the human body. I took something horrible and scary and recreated its image with comforting and familiar traditional embroidery stitches on calico, as a way to make these mysterious, invisible microbes beautiful and manageable.
Intense unrelenting itch
An embroidery of a human mast cell. The cell that produces histamine and caused me months of intense itching with chronic hives.
I felt great horror at seeing my body in a state of illness, and it was shocking as I learned more about the body’s vulnerability. It was as if illness had damaged my 'spirit' as well as my body. Stitching the hateful mast cell was a way to become familiar with this invisible mechanism that was causing great suffering. I found the process cathartic for my 'spirit' after the illness was treated by medicine.
Intense unrelenting itch, 2010, cotton, 210 x 215 mm