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Artist Statement
My practice explores the balance between structure and organic movement, working with natural textiles and plant-based dyes to create surfaces that feel grounded, tactile and alive. I am drawn to materials that hold warmth — cotton, bamboo, hessian — fibres that soften, absorb and respond over time.
Spending my early years in Japan shaped my sensitivity to detail and material integrity, while living in Australia introduced a slower rhythm and a deeper connection to landscape.
I work through layering, allowing dyes, sunlight and time to interact with the surface. Rather than controlling the outcome, I follow the subtle shifts that emerge, letting each piece unfold in its own rhythm. The works become records of this interaction — holding traces of time, place and transformation.
Theme: TRACE
For TRACE, I focused on transitional states — moments that sit between stillness and movement. Some works carry a sense of immediacy and flux, while others unfold more gradually, like fading light. Together, they form a seasonal rhythm.
I work with materials that feel alive. Leaves, fibres and plant dyes hold their own histories, responding to time, light and environment in ways that cannot be fully controlled. The process becomes a collaboration, where each layer reveals something unexpected. As layers build, they begin to hold a visible trace of what has passed through them — impressions of plant matter, shifts in tone, marks left by exposure and duration.
The suspended textile installation in this exhibition extends this thinking into space, creating an environment where material, movement and time are held in suspension.
— Ksenia Shinkarenko, Melbourne, Victoria
