Isabella Pearce
Holding On, 2020
Canvas, fabric, acrylic paint
85 x 100 inches
What makes things go bump in the night? What figure, or image, or dream made you hold your covers tighter because you knew that something was under your bed. How did you make those fears disappear, and when did they go away?
Holding On is a series of paintings based on our childhood fears. After interviewing people on what fears they had as a child, I noticed that no one hesitated with their answer. Spiders, the dark, being kidnapped. Things we now understand as being near impossible seemed like it could happen at any moment when lying awake in our childhood bedroom.
I have chosen to make a quilt out of a combination of paintings and fabric. As a child the quilt on your bed is often a shield against imagined fears. In this work I ask the viewer to confront their fears. Each of the painted panels is a different fear represented only by the hand or hands. I chose to focus on the hands because they can give us the most information into what a person is thinking, feeling, and seeing. Our fingers are intertwined with the things we touch, feel and react to. As children our hands lead out exploration of the world. We pull on hair to see one's reaction, grab at the air in an attempt to feel a loved one's gaze. Our hands are the physicality of what we are thinking.
The flip side is our hands can hurt us, a parent can set us down when we want to be held, we can destroy our possessions in moments of fury.
The canvas panels are sewn together using embroidery thread, creating a clear separation of panels. This notes how each panel represents a different person's fear. Quilts are often depictions of stories or memories; as a child I had a quilt made by my grandmother, showing the story of Alice in Wonderland. They are passed down from generation to generation, each holding the same meaning. In addition to stories, fears and trauma can also be passed down for one generation to another. Quilts piece together stories (both true and imagined) to create a document of our past and a reflection on our present.