Frances vH Mohair Studio

Notes

These tapestries pay homage to Voorkamers. Your ‘showroom’ - a physical filter that one day you hope will seep over the rest of your house, but for now, we close the bedroom door and don’t let anyone go to the bathroom on the left. Voorkamers are the rooms we paint over and decorate with our version of ‘mooi’. They are full of celebration and hope, and we wish we could see ourselves or others to see us. Yet within all the colour and texture, there is always a boxed-in limitation; be it our physical, architectural space, cultural and environmental landscapes, or the square windows that we put up for ourselves and just can’t seem to open.

Spieëlkas Blues sits you down at the dressing table of your youth. An aliceband hangs awkwardly over the side-mirror, covering up the picture of your matric dance (you really should have known better than to wear that apricot frok). A homesick homage to home and all the doleful moments that we dig up or choose to sweep over. This collection opens the door to 'n huis that holds many stories. Voorkamers half-painted with drippings of watered-down blues hidden behind a now-removed fridge. Karoo Blues cling to the ceilings, smoke sticks to the walls, and makes you want to paint the last room ‘so mooi dof geel’. Voorkamers, may you find great comfort in these threads and see all the dreaming and methodical weaving of thoughts that hold them together.

Made collectively by women artisans in the Frances vH Mohair studio.