Fevver

Caroline Achaintre’s arresting creations are made from hand-tufted wool. Her process involves pulling wool through the canvas from behind, the wall-hung compositions thus developing through concentrated intuition. The abstract forms of Fevver come together to create a fearsome geometric face, with brown chevronned patterning, an angular pink mouth and deep black eyes. French born Achaintre cites German Expressionism and post-war British sculpture as influences on her work: movements known for their crude aesthetics which conveyed the trauma of a wartime generation. She also draws upon early 20th Century Primitivism as practised by artists like Picasso, who incorporated imagery from tribal cultures in his art. Achaintre is interested in these periods because they present junctures between the ancient and modern, the psychological and physical, exoticism and technology. ‘My processes utilise methods associated with the applied arts,’ she says. ‘I make those choices not because of my interest in craft, but for their intense, subjective quality … Not knowing the outcome I have to plunge into the process. Interested in the field between abstraction and figuration I try to stay in the uncomfortable middle ground, the in-between.’