A journey of grieving through stitch and poetry

Ashburton Art Gallery Media Release
27/06/2012

A journey of grieving through stitch and poetry

The exhibition Echoes was created by Oamaru art technology teacher Sue McLean and her daughter Rhiannon. It depicts a mother’s turbulent period of grief following the untimely death of her 18-year-old son Lachlan in a house fire in 2007. There are 22 pieces in the exhibition each one accompanied by a poem written by Rhiannon, marking the various stages in their collective grieving process.

“I came to realise that in order to move forward I needed to not only grieve ‘with my head’, but also to grieve ‘with my heart’. Once I had created a space for this to happen, the creative and emotive processes combined to create this series of stitching which illustrate separate facets of the grieving process, my personal journey through this tumultuous period.” –Sue McLean

McLean did not intend on creating works for an exhibition but felt after persuasion from her daughter the work will affect and touch many people in a similar situation.
This moving exhibition has created such wide spread interest because of the theme of the artwork, it has toured to several venues including the Forrester Gallery Oamaru, The Kauri Museum Matakohe, and the Reyburn House Art Gallery, Whangarei.

The exhibition will open at the Ashburton Art Gallery on 14 July with an artist talk at 1:30pm.

Sue McLean and her daughter Rhiannon will be back at the Gallery to present an informal and more in depth floor talk at 11:00am Friday 27 July. All welcome.

Echoes is available for viewing from 14 July – 26 August 2012.

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