Pierre Fouché

Pierre Fouché (b. 1977, Pretoria, South Africa) lives and works in Cape Town and he achieved his MA in Fine Arts from the University of Stellenbosch in 2006.

Fouché introduces himself as a lacemaker. This designation highlights his interest in the techniques, materials, histories, and social relevance of textiles. His respect for technique, tradition, and innovation have earned Fouché his place within the craft establishment as an internationally respected practitioner and teacher of contemporary bobbin lace. His penchant for arcane media and aesthetics, has led his practice to include macramé, drawn thread embroidery, encaustic painting, and pinhole photography, as well as traditional painting, drawing and printmaking.

Thematically, his work focuses on portraiture and the gaze, photography and representation, appropriation and web-media cultures, as well as some forays into overt queer politics. Often informed by world art history, his desire to understand the machinery of contemporary visual cultures tends toward the Romantic. His consistent marriage of iconography with craftsmanship also contributes to this reading.

”The Little Binche Peacock and Other Utopian Dreams”,Installation view: Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape TownSeptember 2019. Photograph by Haydn Phipps, copyright Pierre Fouché

“Fouché’s work consistently represents individuals, from close familiars to strangers whose likenesses are culled from the realm of domestic photography in all its guises: from scratchy old prints to digital downloads.

The portrait is subsequently crafted. It is woven with lace-bobbins, embroidered, written out, cut out of paper, knitted, letter-embossed in plastic, crocheted, assembled with dice or painted on a puzzle.

Each instance of Fouché’s interpretation of an individual likeness involves a triadic narrative: the story of the individual represented, the story of the photographic likeness, and the history of the medium and technique used to reinterpret the photographic instant. These narratives are layered in the final portrait that monumentalizes the personal, the individual, the mundane”.

Source: http://www.pierrefouche.net/

https://www.whatiftheworld.com/artist/pierre-fouche/

Photos has been taken from the artist’s website and are covered by copyright  

“The Kiss”, 2007. Crochet cotton. 2000 x 1200mm. Collection: Iziko South African National Gallery, copyright Pierre Fouché

“The Judgment of Paris (after Wtewael) III”, 2018, Bobbin lace and macramé in polyester braid, wood. 208 x 80cm. Private collection, copyright Pierre Fouché

“His Foam White Arms”, 2012-2015. Cotton, wood, steel pins. 57 x 6000mm. Collection: Spier Art Trust, copyright Pierre Fouché

“PsammaArenarea”, 2007, Crochet cotton, monofilament. 650 x 500mm. Private Collection, copyrightPierre Fouch