About 10 years ago – she remembers the moment exactly – Dominique White began untwisting twisted twine. She was a broke artist learning to weave and she needed more thread than she could afford. Unpicking a two-ply length of sisal rope resulted in double the length to play with, a deeply pragmatic choice. But she also loved how, unpicked, it looked like hair. And she found the slow, gestural activity involved in achieving it “very therapeutic; it switches off your brain”.
Alongside rusting metals, soft white kaolin clay, charcoal, raffia, cowrie shells and driftwood, deconstructed twine has been a signature part of White’s sculptural practice ever since. She makes huge things that bear the weight of the world yet balance – or hang – from limbs as fine as sinew. “There’s something so ghostly, almost, about the works,” she says, “and that’s from using materials that don’t really want to be solid.”
