Meet the Maker: ReNew - In conversation with Karen Suzuki
Image credit: Manchester Art Gallery
Main image credit: Karen Suzuki
Our craft and design showcase ReNew, celebrates artists and makers who breathe new life into existing materials. For our latest Meet the Maker, we spoke to textile artist Karen Suzuki, who has created a collection of textiles sculptures using recycled materials, revisiting past designs and quietly reworking them into something new.
Working from her studio in Glasgow’s east end, Karen makes hand stitched textile objects inspired by real animals, or by ideas that emerge in animal like, anthropomorphic form. Her work is rooted in materials and process, created spontaneously and allowing each object to evolve organically. Using only hand processes, vigorously stitched and left with a rough finish, Karen emphasises the act of making and the small flaws that naturally arise. In doing so, she hopes to give each object a sense of vitality and character.
Image credit: Karen Suzuki
What inspires your work?
It’s hard to say what inspires the work – I’m not conscious of referring to particular inspirations while making. It’s more of an instinctive, spontaneous process, where the materials themselves provide much of the impetus. However, there are probably a lot of unacknowledged inspirations floating around inside my head, in the background, built up since childhood, like well-loved soft toys; sci-fi, horror and monster B movies. I love animals but, apart from the pigeons and sea creatures I occasionally make, my work is mostly only loosely inspired by them – it seems more related to toys than real animals.
Tell us a bit more about the inspiration for the pieces you have included in the ReNew showcase.
Lobster – lobsters and other crustaceans, and insects too, are fascinating in their complex forms and present great problem-solving challenges in terms of construction and surface treatment. I came across the main blue fabric, from an old padded jacket, at the bottom of a drawer in the studio and decided it would be perfect for a rather ragged lobster.
Wheeled Cat – I just love pull toys and enjoy the fact that applying wheels to one of my creatures means it can be taken with you wherever you go (if you don’t mind attracting funny looks). I remember as a small child tying a string to my favourite lamb-shaped plastic stencil and taking it around with me everywhere. This cat is a pull toy for grown ups. I may make a lamb next.
Persimmon Bear – Inspired by recent Japanese news stories regarding bears, pre-hibernation, entering human spaces in search of food; some articles refer to bears seeking out gardens with persimmon trees to indulge their love of that fruit. This bear is from an old tableau piece that was inspired by my memory of being completely confused and lost at a junction in Sapporo, Hokkaido, many years ago. In the original he was surrounded by floating kanji characters from street names, and looking very unhappy. I decided he needed cheering up, so removed him from the original and constructed a new setting for him, surrounded by delicious persimmons (though another bear might be after them too).
The bouclé braid is recycled from work that was in my showcase at Manchester Art Gallery shop in 2021, and the bear is made from vintage fabrics I bought in Nagoya.Squalid Squirrel was inspired by the fabrics used – old linen apron, stained tea towel – both ragged and filthy. The frayed ends of the linen suggested a tail, the tail suggested a squirrel, and ‘squalid’ seemed like an appropriate alliterative word for the title. The rat appeared as a probable companion for squirrel’s living space.
Upright Fox and Handsome Hare are both spontaneously made creatures inspired by the materials and making processes. Bullish also, but he is in his second incarnation – a reworked older bull who was past his best. Bullish has a new face, extended legs, and some extra decorative wire and bead bits. The original bull was from 2023.
A Bird, Honest – I often engage in a ‘desk-tidying challenge’, making something using only the fabric scraps and offcuts, leftover threads and other materials that are sitting around on my desk. I challenge myself to work non-stop, going with the first thought that pops into my head, and not worrying about the end result. It applies too to the colour of thread, each bit of
which has to be used up completely in one go. This bird is the outcome of the most recent challenge.
Tell us a bit more about your practice.
I started out as a ceramicist, graduate and post-graduate of Glasgow School of Art, and practised ceramics until 2005. Around then I switched to mixed media textiles, but it wasn’t a conscious decision to use those materials – just using what I had to hand. I’ve always liked making soft toys, and did a lot of dressmaking, so there was plenty of fabric around! It was an organic development to the kind of work I do now, rather than a planned trajectory. The work has always been about materials, process and embracing the unexpected. I like to keep processes simple and direct, just hand stitching with basic tools – scissors, needles, pins, pliers, wire cutters – assembling a selection of materials then just going for it, without any real plan. I often have no idea what a particular creature will be until some way into the making, so that they mostly self-evolve and take on their own life.
The most rewarding thing is when the work makes people smile or laugh. It’s not intentional to make the work humorous but it seems to end up that way – maybe quirky and good- natured, though sometimes with a dark edge to it. I still don’t exactly know what my work actually is, so when someone asks me: “What do you make?” I never know how to answer!
Describe your workspace.
I have a small single studio space in the east end of Glasgow – in a building with around 100 other artists – though currently also work a lot from home. My studio looks overly busy (a mess!), but it’s organised chaos – everything is placed where I can find it easily.
Who has influenced and inspired you?
Actually no one artist directly inspires the work. It’s about attitudes more than my work reflecting inspiration from another artist’s work – so I’m influenced ‘in spirit’ by work that has a unique vision, like those of David Lynch and Jan Svankmajer, even though my work isn’t directly connected in style or content to theirs. I admire creatives who do their own thing, for its own sake. I’d like to think my work is my own and doesn’t follow any particular trend or fit within a category. It just is as it is.
What is your favourite piece or design you have made?
I have three favourites which, coincidentally, were made for my showcase* at Manchester Art Gallery shop in 2021: Batty, Fox with Passenger, and Punk Goat. I struggled to part with them! Batty, which was inspired by a bat in the dark background of De Rivière’s painting In Manus Tuas, Domine (in the Gallery’s collection), was a fun new challenge adapting an automaton kit to create a bat that would flap its wings. With Fox with Passenger and Punk Goat, I just felt that I’d managed to relax and let processes go where they wanted, and they seemed to come together successfully. This year I’m changing the way I organise my time, with less pressure on making for volume, in the hope that I can recapture some of the freedom of spirit of those three pieces.
Batty, 2001 Image credit: Karen Suzuki