Statement
The entanglements of narrative, nature, and culture compel my work. By placing plant, animal, and fungal bodies (or parts thereof) in relation, my sculptures invite viewers to contemplate the ways in which nature has been culturally conscripted. Not all natural relationships are harmonious and aesthetically pleasing. Some are vexed, parasitic, and abject. And it’s perhaps in the temporary suspension of a morally determined narrative (assigning “good” vs. “bad or “hero” vs. “villain”) that nature-cultures create kinships which can teach us so much about ourselves. In addition to examining savage symbioses, my work employs surrealism and magical realism as visual languages to explore the Anthropocene.
The surface of each of my sculptures is composed of thousands of tiny knots. Like nature, knots carry their metaphorical baggage with a certain nobility. Knots are sensible; they follow a logic; they grant security and safety if tied well; they repeat to form hypnotic, structured, geometric patterns; they tie together all loose ends; they truly can save us from a very bad day. But I prefer to subvert the seeming safety of knots in order to wrestle with their subtext. Knots are formed by tension: they’re constricted little clusters that are characteristically difficult to undo once fastened; and they are a means of hardening an otherwise soft and pliable fiber. In other words, knots express a relationship that is both felicitous and punitive.
While it’s difficult to pinpoint the moment where any given piece begins, my creative process involves a lot of drafting, eliminating, and experimenting. I draw an image with a sharpie on brown paper and try to render it proportionally to the 3D sculpture it will eventually become. Once I have a sketch in hand, I generally begin to develop its modular, knotted shapes of composition. From there, I collaborate with my partner, Loren Wilson (a welder and fabricator) to form a three-dimensional scaffolding for the larger components of my sculptures. This scaffolding is eventually the base around which I knot. This process is meandering and intuitive. Even though I sketch at various stages in each project, I find that where each piece ends up is always a surprise.
Studio Practice
My home studio takes up a mezzanine floor that overlooks our living area. This allows me to be simultaneously present to my work and my family, and has made it possible for me to feel less solitary while tying knots. It’s less a room of my own that I’ve needed, and more of a workplace that is rife with quotidian conflict and stirred by the shifting momentums of a given day.
The majority of fiber I work with is both repurposed and recycled. In 2024, I acquired 1500 lbs of rescued marine debris from Ocean Legacy, a non-profit organization tasked with coastal cleanup across British Columbia. Discarded by fish farm operations and left as solid-form oil spills that wreak havoc on marine ecosystems, this industrial detritus material has become fundamental to the way I now conceive of macrame sculpture.
I separate, cut, melt, splice, and knot around kgs of this ocean debris rope with each new sculpture I create. Not only is this a way to harness the power of waste, but it's also a means of using the materials derived from the Anthropocene in order to represent the disturbing beauty of this geological epoch.
Bio
Janis Ledwell-Hunt’s knotted sculptures redefine macrame as a figurative contemporary art form. Made from repurposed textile waste, marine debris, and discarded metal machine parts, Ledwell-Hunt’s mixed media sculptures are built from the detritus of different industries. Abandoned materials that would otherwise sit in “waste” are redeployed to contemplate anthropocenic relationships between species (both real and imagined).
Heavily influenced by surrealism, magical realism, and post-humanism, Janis Ledwell-Hunt is a Canadian textile artist who calls Vancouver Island home. To create each sculpture, she collaborates fully with her partner, Loren Wilson, whose years of metal fabrication and welding experience help to build steel armatures and customized stands.