Jean Oberlander

The machine gives back the hand is a culmination of several years of work on creating a world that finds joy and appreciation for the languages of knitted stitches and drawn marks. It has built up over time to form an alphabet of mark making that seamlessly intertwines with the knitting, through a past and present steeped in memory and the tradition of knit itself.

The language of memory, developing an alphabet of marks and lines, which derive from hazy moments, lost things and perceived still lives, that are seen and passed by in our daily lives; captured colours from journeys and the misremembering of commuting becomes a language in and of itself – built up and drawn in layers and papers that are transmuted into flat and three-dimensional pieces of textile. The drawn marks become knit stitches, the world is interchangeable. Soft and hard. Knitted and drawn. 

By infusing my own memories into these made works, it emulates the lived life of jumpers around us, which we can never throw away. Let the merging hand and machine processes create a balance of naive anarchy, which uses drawing by hand and on machine to create pieces in flux between the body and space.