Carew recalls and interprets settler folklore and landscape to speculate: How might woodland spirits camouflage and roam the wild? Her family roots in Newfoundland and New Brunswick have influenced her experiences within the wilds of Canada as well as her art practice. Traditional hand hooked rug making, characterized by utility, material reuse, and pictorial storytelling, is re-configured into a collection of land immersive masks and three dimensional topography sculptures.
Some of the works adopt animal characteristics. All depict wild locations dear to the artist. As a collection, the pieces transport the viewer to eastern Canadian dreamscapes and shorelines. The wearable works offer a process of becoming. The colonial settlement artifact, re-made into that which is alive and changeable, underscores the agency of the object, and conversely, limitations to human agency. When activated by the body, the domestic object moves, it is biomimetic, unsettled and wild.
Material preparations such as sourcing plants for natural dying, processing and hand spinning sheep’s wool, and fish leather tanning are added to her signature use of repurposed household textile, metallic synthetics, beading and whip stitched sculptural elements. Carew works from her home studio, pulling materials from her living space and incorporating them in her work.
Digital Print. Rug Hooked Mask & Shoulder Piece. Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked, Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2020
Hand Hooked Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2023
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand hooked yarn, re-purposed textiles, metallic textiles, hand tanned trout and cod leather, wire 2024
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand hooked yarn, repurposed textiles, metallic textiles, clay, hand tanned trout leather and whip stitched components 2024
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked Re-purposed Textiles, Drift Wood, Mixed Media 2023
Sumac Dyed and Hand Spun Wool, Repurposed and Metallic Textiles 2021
Digital Print. Land Mimicry Mask, Hand Hooked Repurposed Textiles, Sumac Dyed and Hand Spun Wool, Mixed Media 2022
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked Repurposed Textile, Hand Tanned Trout Leather, Mixed Media 2021
Digital Print. Rug Hooked Mask & Shoulder Piece. Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Digital Print. Rug Hooked Masks & Shoulder Pieces. Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked Repurposed Textile, Hand Tanned Salmon Fish Leather, Mixed Media 2023
Digital print. Fields of towering, swaying Goldenrod blanket the Leslie Spit headlands in Toronto. They are at their tallest and brightest golden yellow in the waining days of August when the sun thinks about setting. The symbol for gold on the periodic table of elements is (Au) or Aurum. 2023
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked, Goldenrod Dyed and Hand Carded Sheeps Wool, Hand Tanned Trout Fish Leather, Re-purposed Textiles, Metallic Textiles 2023
Land Mimicry Mask. Hand Hooked Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2020
Land Mimicry Mask. hand Hooked Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2020
Hand Hooked Re-purposed Textiles, Hand Tanned Trout Fish, Mixed Media 2023
Kinetic Hand Hooked Sculpture, Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Rug Hooked Sculpture Installation, Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Kinetic hand Hooked Sculpture, Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Rug Hooked Sculpture Installation, Repurposed Textile, Mixed Media 2021
Hand Hooked Yarns, Mixed Media 2023
How do natural communities resist human borders and constraints? How might we emulate these natural processes as acts of subversion to isolating normative social structures? This work explores personal identity and comparisons between human dwelling practices and those found in the wilds of fallow farmland ecosystems in southern Ontario. Performative mimicry of the natural world is practiced as a transformative, embodied and immersive experience. Photography is used as a record for these land/human interactions.
Digital Print, 34” x 46” 2016
Fabrication Reference: Farm Field Meadow Vole Behaviour
Digital Print. Deconstructed Textile, Mixed Media 2015
Digital Print, 38” x 28” 2015
Deconstructed Textiles, Mixed Media 2015
Repurposed Textile, Wool, Embroidery Thread 2016
Fabrication references: The Basswood Leafroller Moth and the Spotted Grass Moth
Repurposed Textiles, Wool, Embroidery Thread 2016
Digital Print. Felted Wool Wearable, 32” x 42” 2015
Digital Print. Felted Wool Wearable, 32” x 40” 2015
Performance 2016
Land mimicry featuring Ontario fallow farmland ecosystems.
Digital Print, 42” x 30.5” 2015
Felted Wool, Repurposed Table Cloth. Fabrication Reference: Unidentified Moth 2015
Repurposed Curtains, Wire, Pillow Fluff 2016
Fabrication Reference: Goldenrod Galls
Found Tree Branches, Repurposed Blanket and Cushions, Gold Fabric, Embroidery, 2016
Regarding Natural Resource Extraction and Wealth Acquisition at the Expense of Indigenous Peoples in Canada
Video Installation (Photo), Experimental Media Room, Graduate Gallery, OCAD University, Toronto
Repurposed Household Textiles, Thread 2017
Body Coiling and Dreamscape Blanket 2017
Digital Print, 9” x 17” 2015
Wood, House Paint, Photograph 2016
Wood, House Paint, Photograph 2016
Wood, House Paint, Photograph 2016
Yarn, Wood, Textile, House Paint 2018
Receiving Blankets, Egg Talismans
Household Fabrics, Receiving Blanket, Wire 2018
Photography 2017
Photography 2017
Photography 2017
Photography 2015
Photography 2015
Photography 2015
Textile and Mixed Media, 2015
Memory Stories
Oil Paintings
Still life takes flight and collides with landscape in oil paintings featuring Ontario ecosystems. Carew combines inside and outside environments to build new visual stories. Here, the natural world becomes overrun with exploring figurines and vintage household textiles. These reanimated, still life nature proxies break free from their interior domestic worlds to explore the great outdoors. Like eye candy, these super sweet objects can be seen as distractions from the land depicted. Dream-like scenarios engage nostalgia for land, allow for the ways we capture the outside in our interior domestic lives, and celebrate the tenacity of the wild.
Oil on Wood, 36" x 48" 2018
Oil on Canvas, 48" x 60" 2018
Oil on Wood, 36” x 48” 2018
Oil on Canvas, 48” x 60” 2019
Oil and House Paint, Wood Panel, 30” x 30” 2020
Oil and Acrylic on Wood, 30" x 30" 2014
Oil and Acrylic on Wood, 30" x 30" 2014
Mixed Media, 30" x 30" 2014
Oil on Masonite, 15" x 30" 2012
Oil on Masonite, 15" x 30" 2012
Oil on Masonite, 15" x 30" 2012
Oil on Masonite, 48” x 36” 2012
Oil on Canvas, 36” x 48” 2013
Oil on panel, 18” x 22” 2013
Oil on Canvas, 32” x 34”, 1998
Oil on Masonite, 34” x 30”, 1998
Oil on Panel, 24" x 36", 1998
Oil on Masonite, 22” x 24”, 1998
Oil on Canvas, 34” x 36”, 1998
Oil on Masonite, 30” x 28”, 1998
Portrait Commission. Oil on Canvas, 26" x 30", 1999
Oil on Canvas, 36” x 34”, 1998
Acrylic on Paper, 18” x 24”, 2013
Oil and Charcoal on Paper, 24” x 36” 1994
Oil and Charcoal on Paper, 24” x 36” 1994
Oil and Charcoal on Paper, 24” x 36” 1994
Oil and charcoal on Paper, 18” x 24” 1994
Oil and Charcoal on Paper, 24” x 36” 1994
Oil and Charcoal on Paper, 1994
Acrylic on Paper, 18” x 24”
Oil on Masonite, 19.5” x 27.5”
Oil on panel, 5” x 7”, 1995
Oil on Panel, 10” x 12” 2003
Oil on Panel, 7” x 9” 1995
Oil on Panel, 5” x 7” 1998
Oil on Wood, 8” x 10” 1998
Oil on Panel, 6” x 8” 1999
Oil on Panel, 6” x 8” 1999
Oil on Masonite, 10” x 8” 1999
Oil on mason, 12” x 10” 2012
Oil on masonite, 8” x 6” 1998
Land and Dwelling
Performances and Biomimetic Sculptures
Dreamscape Blanket is a role-play performance which mimics the species composition and wild resilience of a fallow farm field ecosystem in southern Ontario, Canada. Each plant was made by hand using reclaimed textiles and mixed media materials.
An immersive, low-lying perspective of a fallow farm field ecosystem re-imagined in a home space. Constructed using household textiles.
Re-Crafted Traditional Colonial Rug Making
Rug Making and Performance come together to bring life and the unexpected to the interior home space. By re-crafting and animating traditional coiled rug making, Carew hopes to design a porous interplay between inside and outside worlds. The shape and movement of the performance is inspired by the Grey Aphids found in the backyard of this location in Toronto.
Hand Hooked Rug Sculpture Installation, 2021
Hand Hooked Rug Sculpture Installation, 2021
Dreamscape Blanket is a reconstruction of a meadow ecosystem in southern Ontario, Canada. Land is brought to life using a hidden motor, which adds a breathing motion to the installation.
A continual work in progress, Body Coiling is formed using slow craft practice and household textile reuse. The fabrics used are material signifiers of cultural place and personal history. These are deconstructed, braided and hand sewn to form one endless, cyclical configuration.
By mapping this slow, high labour making, as well as what is understood about the function of rugs onto the body: warmth, insulation, decoration, the object stepped on and beneath which matters to be concealed are “swept under,” Body Coiling re-crafts how we perceive, perform and experience identity and corporality. The colonial settlement artifact, re-made into that which is alive and changeable, underscores the agency of the object, and conversely, limitations to human agency.
Feminist Artist Conference and Residency
When entering and exiting the piece, it stretches and moves with the body into a larval shape and motion.
An insulating comfort derived from reclusive tendencies.
Photo by Ryan Pechnick
An insulating comfort derived from reclusive tendencies.
Photo by Ryan Pechnick
Biomimetic movement featuring aphid behaviour.
Biomimetic movement featuring aphid behaviour.
Biomimetic movement featuring aphid behaviour.
Biomimetic movement featuring aphid behaviour.
Biomimetic movement featuring aphid behaviour.
Details for Lowbush Bluberries Sculpture
Creating a relief sculpture using a combination of synthetic metallic textiles and repurposed cotton bed sheets.
Using the DIZZY top whorl spindle, designed and made in studio.
Hand hooked repurposed textiles, whip stitched wool yarn, glass beads.
Hand hooked rug wearable featuring beached capelin fish and eggs.
Rug Hooked Wearable Sculpture
A wearable warning device that expands when the wearer is in need of personal space, acting as a shielding tool to halt interactions with the chaotic outside world. In a resting state it sits on the shoulder like a closed wing. When activated, it forms a sweeping physical barrier.
A co-sensing communication tool that amplifies both the giving and receiving of touch. It increases the surface area of the hand and fingers, enhancing the tactile engagement and intimacy between two people.
J-Clothes, Jewellery Clasp 2017
Textile, Pins, Jewellery Clasp 2017
Textile, Pins, Jewellery Clasp 2017
Furnace Filter, Wire 2018
