CLAUDIA MUNRO





Screen
2021 -
  1. A Performance of the Social Fabric
  2. Moonless Night
  3. BLESS YOUR HEART
  4. MERGE
  5. snob
  6. A Watery Commons


Physical
2020 -  
  1. The Labour of Emotions, The Emotions of Textiles
  2. Lineage Found in Lambs
  3. A Trial and Error of the Social Carpet
  4. Dear Sweden, Give Me My Bones Back
  5. Overlap
  6. Various Posters


Written
2023 -
  1. BLESS YOUR HEART text
  2. Bread and Butter text
  3. The Labour of Emotions, The Emotions of Textiles interviews
  4. Kiss your friends (and tell them you love them) text
  5. Liminality text
  6. Why Dig A Tunnel When You Could Build A Bridge? text




Info
  1. Hello/hej! I am an artist/designer from New Zealand/Sweden interested in the edges – where creative practices overlap and what can be made from the in between. 


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2. Bread & Butter text



2024
Exhibition description text for Alice Toomer’s solo show ‘Bread and Butter’ at Twentysix Gallery, Wellington NZ

See more of Alice’s work here








“Who do you invite to take a place at your proverbial table? Or rather, who invites you? Food, as always, is the clearest indication of our daily participation in the divide between the ordinary and the luxurious — who can partake, and who must merely watch. Alice Toomer’s latest exhibition, 'Bread and Butter,' casts us as the voyeurs and holds the untouchable within reach just a little longer, preserving their ephemerality with her decisive clarity.

At the outset, Toomer’s depictions of fine cheeses and sourdough are complimentary, the exhibition title itself — Bread and Butter — honouring food’s essentiality in life. She stands back and paints with intent, every inch of her works laboured over and formed with care, inciting perfection as a practice. It is a commitment to understanding her subject, both in form and in symbolism — each work adding to the open letter she writes of both the adoration of these indulgences, alongside lingering critique.

As more time is spent with these goods, the fine line between nourishment and indulgence becomes far too easy to tip. Essentiality becomes lost with each new trimming — as the commercialization of the food industry gets restless for more. More luxury, more unreachability, more desire. The market behind this artisanal food pushes them toward us, with more bows and boxes, wrapping and strings. Toomer grazes this line, with crisp borders of white paper wrapping and charcuterie hung by string. We, the voyeurs, are held back from our feast just a little longer, tangled in the unattainability our purse strings may bind us within. ‘Bottle Bags’ being our most tangible encounter with what we are not yet allowed to have. Hidden inside wrinkled brown paper, we know the familiar image enough to recognize what we may be missing, but Toomer grants us no access to what we desire.

Her critiques are slight. Subtle, but thoughtfully placed throughout the collection. ‘Smoked Gouda’ is emblematic of Toomer's precise intricacy. No longer is our table of goods fresh from its maker's hands, but rather intercepted by a longing. In our absence, the cheese begins to decay amongst its own fleeting nature — fauna stepping in before we can. These luxuries we so desire return back to their most raw beginning once again, as they are undressed of affluence in their ageing state.

And so ‘Bread and Butter’ comes back on itself, Toomer stretching to critique, but eventually meeting us back at appreciation. A collection of indulgent goods, held in an offering to us for a little longer. Their taste lingers, a smell of fresh wheat follows. What we perhaps cannot enjoy daily is merely what we will savour on occasion. Alice Toomer adeptly laying out the laden table, one by one.”