Please join the Friends of the ATW for a series of special lectures ahead of the ATW’s prestigious small tapestry prize, the 2021 Kate Derum Award and Irene Davies Emerging Artist Award for Small Tapestries.

Speaker: Kayla Mattes (USA)
Tuesday 15 June 1pm AEST*

WATCH THE LECTURE

Celebrating 10 years since the Kate Derum Award was established the tapestry weavers selected for this speaker series will have been winners or finalists of either the Kate Derum Award or Irene Davies Emerging Artist Award for Small Tapestries. This series of lectures celebrates the diversity and scope of contemporary tapestry practice worldwide in anticipation of the awards. 

Kayla Mattes is a visual artist living and working in Los Angeles. Kayla’s work is informed by the narrative history of tapestry weaving and its ability to act as a material archive of our times. Through humor, her work explores ideas related to our relationship with digital culture, socio-political issues and how the entanglement of these things makes us feel. Kayla has been weaving for over twelve years, and primarily works on her Leclerc Tissart Tapestry loom from the 1970s out of her studio in downtown Los Angeles. She received a BFA in Textiles from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and an MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2019. Recent exhibitions include Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles, Collaborations in Copenhagen, DK, Monya Rowe Gallery in New York and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Her work has been featured in publications including New American Paintings, i-D, It’s Nice That, and Sculpture Magazine, and is included in the book, Weavers: Contemporary Makers on the Loom. Kayla was a finalist in the 2019 Kate Derum Award.

Attendees can watch the lecture live via Zoom. Please register to receive a link to attend. *AEST is Australian Eastern Standard Time. You can check your timezone here. The talk will be recorded and available on You Tube at a later date.