This work is part of Georgia Bisley’s 2024 exhibition, Protection.

Georgia Bisley’s life-size abstract ‘tapestries’ are personal artefacts of sorts where geometries, materiality and colour speak to parts of her identity. Heraldic in nature, her textiles emulate shield-like forms that reference armours of Bisley’s Celtic heritage.

As well as the rich amalgamation of experiences they reference, these works are imbued with moments of strength, fragility, fragmentation and cohesion. Constructed and then carefully broken apart, areas of densely tufted wool sit alongside unravelled moments of transparency where tightly woven linen is left exposed and dyed before being painstakingly unpicked row by row. Each work is, in essence, made and unmade. The process of doing and undoing is an ode to Georgia’s evolving sense of purpose, and the learning and unlearning so inextricably linked with the formation of self. Colour is central to the intention of these works – a bold and often jarring palette of remnant wools used to playfully render moments and markers of the artist’s early years.