Demons, yarns & tales

Fifteen internationally renowned artists explore a medium foreign to their usual practise, experimenting within the lost world of wall-hanging tapestry. Three years in the making, the fourteen tapestries in Demons, Yarns and Tales address a range of subjects from fictive landscapes and architectural abstraction to fashion and flora while considering the politics of race, gender, international conflict and the environment. Adjusting to the new medium while adapting to unfamiliar textures and surfaces, each artist has found ways to expand their practice and develop the ongoing themes in their work. Demons, Yarns and Tales sees them translate familiar languages of paint, paper, pencil, ink on canvas, ceramics or wood panel into that of hand woven stitch and silk thread. The artists included in the book are Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, avaf, Peter Blake, Jaime Gili, Gary Hume, Francesca Lowe, Beatriz Milhazes, Paul Noble, Grayson Perry, Shahzia Sikander, Fred Tomaselli, Gavin Turk, Julie Verhoeven and Kara Walker. Sarah Kent is a British art critic, former art editor for London’s Time Out and an influential figure in the contemporary British art scene. She is the author of Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s.