Since graduating from a degree in Fine Art Sculpture at Kingston, Armi gained a PGCE at Reading University and has taught art and design for most of her adult life, alongside raising her two children, who both now follow careers in the creative arts.
Many and diverse skills and processes, gained from teaching the arts, now find a place in her work. The visual arts have always been a dominant preoccupation, and teaching post 16 students and adults has led to in-depth ways of creative thinking, for instance, writing and developing structured course material to meet specific level criteria. Reciprocal benefits from teaching now inform a structured method in her process.
Currently prioritising her own creative journey, predominantly in print and mixed media textiles, Armi now has her own studio in which she continues to teach and share creative print workshops - no5workshops - alongside forging her career as an artist.
Among others, Liberty London have brought their design teams to the studio for their “away days” to get messy and to broaden their creative
toolkit. Teaching continues to be an important aspect, with tangible two way benefits in Armi’s creative quest.
Her mixed-media pieces are process led; the developing relationships between the materials, mediums and concepts form the final visual resolution.
“If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.” – Cindy Sherman.
Experimentation and an ongoing balance between chance, control and concept underpin much of my work. It is the space between these which excites me; the decisions made, the placement of things, the developing and changing meanings and relationships. Curiosity, exploration and think time are central. The investigative journey is as much a part of the work as the end result.
Always curious, responding to, and re-interpreting the things noticed around her, printmaking and stitch are primary mediums along with foraged, found objects and 3D elements which she makes, often in porcelain.
Natural fabrics, paper and found objects obtained from recycled manufacturing waste are carefully selected and used as a substrate onto which she mono print, screen print, stitch and draw and place.
The pieces you see here are a selection of her ‘Precious’ Series.
Investigating the notion of precious, these pieces seek to elevate and preserve what is truly important and of value to her in today’s ever-changing world.
Using carefully selected, discarded spoon cases and other boxes originally made to house something precious - a keep-sake, a commemorative silver christening spoon, a set of silver cake forks - I now place my own interpretation of ‘precious’.
Noticed, found, gathered and collected from places walked and visited, pressings and impressings are assembled, printed, stitched and foiled.
The spoon form is re-imagined making suggestion of an alternative value, while the asemic writing and book references counter the onslaught of the typed, the digital, scrolled and emojied world we inhabit today.
These decorative pieces highlight the need to hold tightly onto what we have.
