Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art
A view of coloured material forming soft sculptural shapes in a gallery. The materials are all different colours, and are shown in two sections, partly against a wall, and partly in a free-standing configuration
View of sculptural work made of coloured material in a white-walled gallery with a concrete floor. Also visible are some screens made of corrugated metal.

Sheila Hicks

Hicks is predominately known as a textile artist and has been making work for more than six decades. Influenced by her research and travels in South America, she has developed a unique sculptural vocabulary.

Her work is rooted in history and her in-depth knowledge of indigenous practices, materials and their properties. The artist's relationship with the act of making - twisting and weaving - and the relationship between hand and material are central considerations in her practice.

Her large-scale interventions into galleries use textiles and fibres. For this exhibition, she created a vertical thrusting mesh of twists and turns made of soft, pliable, sculptural threads tightly wound together into a dense maze or tower which takes the full height of the building. This work is equally celebratory as it is sombre and considered. Hicks juxtaposes colliding colours and textures, clashing the hand-made and seductive textile works with the steel framework of the building to create a monumental presence within the space.

Commissioned by Glasgow International