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Levo - 5 Days Until Grad Show!

  • Nov 26, 2023

Updated: Dec 3, 2023

A photograph taken at the ANU School of Art and Design in Canberra, Australia. The abstract textile artwork is by Megan Kennedy, an exploration into the nature and utility of anxiety through sewing, stitching, embroidery, burning, soldering, painting, inking, natural dye and collage.
Test shot of Levo I by Megan Kennedy

Five days out from the 2023 ANU School of Art Grad Show Opening, nerves are catching up. So I thought I would share some info about my practice-led research. Over the past year, I have been working on two artworks centred around the ways anxiety can drive textile work to shift forms. Having an extensive personal history of mental and chronic illness, I aimed to channel anxiety through materiality in the hopes of augmenting treatment and redirecting and/or reconceptualising my own precarious psychology. 


Levo is a Latin word meaning to raise or relieve.[1] From my hand-embroidered stream-of-conscious thoughts and observations to soldering, burning, sewing and the colouring of unwanted bedsheets and material with ink and natural dye, Levo has become a vessel for the auditing and articulation of my anxious experience.


A detail of Levo II by Canberra artist Megan Kennedy, an abstract textile artwork that explores anxiety through embroidery, stitching, sewing, burning, natural dyeing, painting, inking and soldering


I began this series to test and expand my capacity for artistic making. In undertaking this immersive personal and multidisciplinary practice, my investigations have been met with three key methods to examine and shift my anxiety - occupation, expression and utilization. 


Over the course of this practice-led research, I have come to view the Levo pair as a mapping of unease, distress and worriment. However, they have also become a device through which I can experience vivid productivity, momentum, diversion, memory and catharsis. 


Levo is on show alongside a wealth of talented graduating student's work from the 2nd of December (opening night is at 6 pm on the 1st) at the ANU School of Art and Design. 


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[1] D. P. Simpson, Cassell’s Latin Dictionary (London, UNITED KINGDOM: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2000), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anu/detail.action?docID=743155.



Plotting Raindrops with Stitching

  • Nov 23, 2023

A white textile panel fraying at the edges. The surface of the textile exhibits stitched black dots made by marking the impact of raindrops during a sun shower. The underside of the stitching is visible through the upper layer, creating abstract constellations.

A white textile panel fraying at the edges. The surface of the textile exhibits stitched black dots made by marking the impact of raindrops during a sun shower. The underside of the stitching is visible through the upper layer, creating abstract constellations.

Now my practice-led research is over for the year (photos to come) I've gained some time to carry out smaller experimentations. These two textile panels document a rain shower lasting from 4pm to 4:05pm. As each drop hit the calico I marked it with ink. These markings were subsequently stitched over as meditative practice. Abstract constellations form, tracking my progression from one drop to the next.




September 2023

  • Sep 26, 2023

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