“Textura Urbanus” – A Three Course Long Lunch with the artist Graeme Endean

“Textura Urbanus” is an exhibition showing highwarp tapestries inspired by the urban environment of Sydney city and the inner west. Street art “wild style” has inspired a series of bright colours, subtle shades, bold shapes conceptualised and expressed in the woven form. Found objects, retrieved and repurposed, create an evocative image. A substainable resource collected and manipulated into woven and sculptural forms create a cohesive and pertinent exhibition.

The bangalow palm is one of many endemic species used by the traditional owners for many purposes from water coolaman, baby beds, leeching bags nets and storage containers used to hold grains and yams,then kept in store sylos. South Coast NSW Weaving was known to be the finest and the methods travelled all the way to the Northern territory, recently re-emerging into main stream culture on the South Coast. Many of the traditionally managed agriculture and aquaculture systems which maintained the sedge, reed, fish and eels stocks have been destroyed through ignorance and mismanagement.

Growing up surrended by bushland in then new suburb of North Epping, with a creek running through our backyard, hours were spent exploring, observing and being immersed in nature.

At an early age (7-8) I was earning pocket money helping neighbours with their gardening, using traditional methods which today would be touted as organic. This was the time before the use of chemicals in gardening. I planted my first vegie patch when I was 16. Trips to Sunny Corner near Lithgow where we would look at aboriginal rock carvings and picnic by a creek picking blackberries for Nanna’s pies and jam was an inspiring childhood memory.

Moving to Darlinghurst, hanging out at artist’s squats, wearing second-hand clothes, shaving and dying of hair, music, bands, the Punk-Ska-New wave urban culture of the late 70s, early 80’s was my early 20s. Starting as a dishwater in pubs, I worked as a cook and chef from Groote Eylandt to Kings Cross, from the Barossa Valley to New Caledonia. The early 80s was when I was introduced to permaculture where the early seeds for regional seasonal sustainable cuisine were germinated, which has been a passion for almost 4 decades. Whether living in the country or the city, growing my own food, processing scraps and dog waste, supporting local growers markets, sustainability is a primary motivation.

I have tapestries in collections in Sweden, Germany, France, America, Australia.

ArtSHINE Gallery housed at CoSydney CoWorking + Enterprise Accelerato