“Time was short, so we made little bits on the kitchen table”, says Su Richardson, who spent the 1970s juggling her creative practice with domestic responsibilities at home in Birmingham. Some of those “little bits” are now on show Midlands Arts Centre, where the artist’s largest retrospective to date, ‘In Stiches’, has recently opened.
Lining the gallery’s walls are soft sculptures, including one of her more recent works and a highlight of the exhibition, ‘Out of the Bag: self portrait’ (2022). Dangling from a pink hanger is a crocheted figure whose face has been covered with an eye mask picturing a bright lipstick-red smile and sunglasses. This glamorous guise of femininity has been framed by many a great male artist – and fashion magazine.
But Richardson invites viewers to look down at the woman’s sagging breasts and stomach, while her fragile limbs stretch with gravity. Challenging art history’s idealised views of female nudity, Richardson has instead portrayed an ageing woman’s body. The entire sculpture can be easily folded away into an accompanying bag, symbolising the invisibility of older women, which Richardson herself finds somewhat freeing.
Traipsing across the floor, the figure’s bare feet meet another eye mask – this one featuring a miniature version of Richardson’s iconic work, ‘Burnt Breakfast’ (1975). The artist is nodding to her early experimental textile sculpture through which she used the ‘womanly’ skill of crochet to critique gendered roles and ‘domestic bliss’. Like so much of her work, it’s defined by a humorous dissatisfaction with the patriarchy’s status quo.
At MAC, a series of three ‘Burnt Breakfast’ prints have been included, pointing back to this critical point in her career, when the artist was a foundational member of the Birmingham Women’s Art Group. All mothers to small children, and suffering from isolation, the collective set about inventing art that would express “the condition of women”, a theme which has continued in Richardson’s practice ever since. As she explains:
“When I returned to making work, I felt like I was catching up on all the things that had happened not just in my life, but in all women’s lives. During those intervening years between your thirties and seventies, so many things happen: from motherhood to menopause and conditions like endometriosis, to experiences related to loss and caring.”
Endometriosis is the subject of ‘Pain Pillow’ (2021), comprising a mauve-coloured cushion which has been pierced by silver safety pins and tightened with chains. By subverting domestic materials meant to offer comfort, Richardson evokes the physical pain and internalised trauma of the condition which affects about 10% of women world wide.
She also confronts breast cancer in ‘Reconstruction’ (2022), where the physical traces of a mastectomy have been transformed into a decorative red heart, sewn with care. Women’s stories can be found in their bodily scars, she shows viewers.
More crocheted breasts of various shapes, sizes and colours question ideals of motherhood, breastfeeding and body expectations, exploring the tension between natural bodily functions and societal pressures to conform to specific standards of beauty.
Miscarriage, child loss, caregiving and the Covid-19 pandemic are also themes that she engages with in this playful yet thought-provoking exhibition. Packed with dry humour, crochet sandwiches and wraps question domestic to-do lists, which many women still take the lead on.
“Through this exhibition, I want to make visiting gallery spaces more of an everyday, relatable experience. It’s about having the events in ordinary peoples’ lives recognised by others”, says Richardson.
“By communicating these themes in a friendly, down-to-earth way, I hope people will feel a link to my work, and think ‘Oh, I remember feeling that!’ – and if not, that it will help them see things from a different perspective.”
The exhibition’s curator Roma Piotrowska has said:
“Su Richardson is one of the pioneers of British feminist art, and here at MAC, we are fortunate to have her as our neighbour. Her art, overlooked for decades, is now receiving the recognition it truly deserves. I am proud and excited that we have the opportunity to introduce her remarkable practice to wider local audiences. They are in for an absolute treat.”
Throughout art history, ‘women’s work’ – embroidery, knitting, weaving, sewing – has been considered less important than the ‘high art’ of painting or sculpture. But it’s by resurrecting craft techniques with a deliberately ‘feminine’ palette of pretty pastels, that Richardson makes messy and painful female experiences palatable.
While ‘In Stiches’ shows how far Richardson’s career has progressed since those early days when she was working alone at the kitchen table, it also proves that women’s everyday lives remain her most compelling subject. Committed to programming one textile artist’s exhibition each year, MAC is bringing long overdue recognition to this medium’s soft power.
Free to visit, ‘In Stitches’ runs until 1 June, 2025 at Midlands Arts Centre where Marcia Michael: The Family Album is also on display.
