▶ PRESS: MELINDA LE GUAY IN DAS SUPERPAPER

  'Wire Mesh Steel Dresses', Megan Fizell, Das Superpaper Issue 17, February 2011, p.32-33.

"As a young girl, Melinda le Guay learned to knit, a skill that she revived to create her intricate and detailed sculptures. Using discarded copper wire, the dresses are knit into a loose mesh with other soft materials – paper, gauze, feathers – woven into the design. Le Guay does not follow a specific pattern, the initial dress was conceptualised as a corset, and that dress became the standardised design that she replicates from memory. She uses needles in varying sizes to construct her sculptures over a two-week period, with the repetitious act of knitting central to her work. Inspired by artists who have ‘used labour intensive repetition or the methodical processes of domestic skills such as knitting, sewing and repair,’ the act of knitting not only establishes a visual record of this repetitious act, the nurturing associations connected to this craft also highlight the other themes embodied in the series. The dresses are sometimes layered and create a complex mesh that is hung against a wall. The wire is not bent into uniform stitches and the loops and curls create a haphazard arrangement of shapes."