Off the easel – Read about Yolande Henebery’s creation of her lovely Matador Mule
May 8th, 2017Matador Mule – Yolande Henebery
Yolande’s background is in textiles having studied at Bretton Hall Sculpture Park in the eighties finishing at Goldsmiths in 1989 in Textile Arts. She is an artist painting with collage, building layers of texture, incorporating memorabilia, which enables her to capture memories.
She embellishes loved items, using still life compositions to celebrate her passion for colour, pattern and things retro.She uses inks and pen detail enhanced with pencil, glitters and fabric to sculpt her objects. Her work is an abstract vision of her travels and favourite places, initially inspired by her stay in East embellishes, South Hams; and brings together the recycling of her memories and materials collected along the way.
About Matador Mule she says:
Matador Mule-is based on a blue china donkey I have had since my childhood and includes a small silver horse. I sketch the composition in the first instance, and then translate to a stretched A1 piece of water colour paper. I source all of my materials locally, often using the ‘Crumbs’ magazine for colour, texture and pattern from foods and embellishes. The donkey is sculpted from a picture I had of a Matador, with the blues and golds on his costume. The horse in the forefront is created using silvers and is juxtaposition against the donkey with a background of wrapping paper I found in Portugal a couple of years ago. It seemed to just go really well, with a pattern of dancers and red, yellow and blue symbols. The two animals are placed on a patterned cloth with a bolder taken from a fiends table cloth and woven with receipts and parking tickets of places visited.
I have an image that develops as I build the layers of patterns and colours. The theme is often items and patterns that are reminiscent of the vintage years. I use Indian ink and pencil detail to develop depth and to enhance the shapes. I comb the charity shops and coastal lines for anything of interest. Creating all my pieces on my kitchen table, but the inspiration is from my travels and love of all things retro which in turn captures special memories.
We photographed lovely work and print her pictures onto Studio Expression.