Caro Pattle — Honey Vessel, 2022

Hand woven fabric vessel in a rich gold-coloured hue.

Each of Pattle's vessels is hand-woven using traditional coil basketry methods. Formed layer by layer, the vessels slowly amass via a stratum of simple loops and knots. The forms of the vessels reference amphorae - two-handled vessels found in antiquities which were commonly used for tasks such as storing wine, milk, or olives. While the original amphorae were often ceramic, the materiality of these velvet vessels honours a utilitarian object at the expense of its usability.

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Caro Pattle is a textile artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her experimental object-based practice explores handcraft processes through a lens of contemporary materiality. She draws from a range of craft disciplines to create works that joyfully muddle organic and synthetic, past and present and functional and non-functional binaries. Her work is underpinned by ongoing research into historical and current, material culture, animism, and domestic worlds. Embedded across all of her output is a sense of pleasure and play. Pattle's practice spans large-scale public art installation through to objects for interiors.

Named the Australian Textile Graduate of the Year by the Design Institute of Australia, 2020 Pattle has had her work presented at the inaugural NGV Melbourne Design Fair and selected for the group exhibitions: Improper Structures, By/Product and Welcome. Pattle completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts, 2009 and a Bachelor of Textiles, 2019 at RMIT.

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As a participant in the inaugural Melbourne Design Fair, Craft Victoria will present a curated collection of the most exciting makers in Australian craft and design.

The exhibition will feature 13 makers working across ceramics, textiles, glass and metal, including textile artist Anastasia La Fey, ceramic artist Belle Thierry, textile artist Caro Pattle, ceramic artist Danielle Thiris, furniture and lighting designer Dean Toepfer, artist and experimental designer Jessie French, metalsmith Kenny Yong-Soo, multidisciplinary artist and weaver Lisa Waup, glass artist Misseu, ceramicist Owen Rye, ceramicist Vanessa Lucas, and ceramicist Yoko Ozawa.

Makers will come together in an immersive installation with emerging practitioners featured alongside established designers, showcasing creative ingenuity and material mastery.

Initiated by the NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture and delivered in collaboration with the Melbourne Art Foundation, the fair is a new platform for the craft and design community to bring their collective creative energy together and sell one-off, limited edition pieces in a unique, cultural experience over five days.

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Material: Velvet

Dimensions: approx. 34cm x 21cm