The artist’s vast sculptures are constructed from unspooled twine and metal ribs that have been submerged in seawater, using the motif of shipwrecks to question history, hope and the afterlife
About 10 years ago – she remembers the moment exactly – Dominique White began untwisting twisted twine. She was a broke artist learning to weave and she needed more thread than she could afford. Unpicking a two-ply length of sisal rope resulted in double the length to play with, a deeply pragmatic choice. But she also loved how, unpicked, it looked like hair. And she found the slow, gestural activity involved in achieving it “very therapeutic; it switches off your brain”.
Alongside rusting metals, soft white kaolin clay, charcoal, raffia, cowrie shells and driftwood, deconstructed twine has been a signature part of White’s sculptural practice ever since. She makes huge things that bear the weight of the world yet balance – or hang – from limbs as fine as sinew. “There’s something so ghostly, almost, about the works,” she says, “and that’s from using materials that don’t really want to be solid.”
