The anima tapestries.

The Anima Tapestries comprise a suite of ten wall hangings exploring the threshold between real and imagined worlds. Developed following residencies in Bangkok and Palermo, the series draws on Ayutthayan mural traditions, Theravada Buddhist narratives, and religious texts from both Eastern and Western cultures. Myth, ritual, and poetic structure underpin the work, enabling dialogue between human and animal realms, narrative transmission, and archetypal forms of imagination.

Produced in collaboration with TextielLab, Tilburg, the jacquard weavings incorporate rubber, merino, mohair, linen, acrylic, and polyester yarns. The works carry the physical weight and tactile authority of woven materials while invoking the historical gravity of European tapestry traditions, including biblical, allegorical, and mythical cycles shaped by triumph, tragedy, and moral struggle. Blue Lion, for example, depicts a lion attacking a man. Saturated, glittering colour disrupts the violence, rendering the encounter playful and dreamlike. The scene resonates with mythic precedents, from Hercules and the Nemean Lion to Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy, while remaining deliberately unstable in meaning. Read within different exhibition contexts, the blue lion can also function as a mutable symbol of imperial power.

The series reflects a sustained engagement with religious and narrative art, combining time-intensive design processes with close attention to material behaviour, compositional structure, and symbolic density. Several works were further developed during a residency at Casa Spazio within the Mediterranean context of Palermo, Sicily.

The collection was exhibited in Dunedin and Queenstown, with Blue Lion touring nationally after receiving the Jury Prize at the Wallace Art Awards.

Generously supported by the Jan Warburton Charitable Trust.