Kneel and kiss the ground: A solo exhibition by Rachel Hope Peary

A body of work comprising just two mediums, Kneel and kiss the ground is Peary’s most concise presentation to date: all but one work measure the same dimensions, all works are constructed from the same materials, and all works draw from the same lexicon of techniques.

Constructed from thread and cedar alone, Kneel and kiss the ground sees Peary dissolve the junctures at which the two meet, suggesting there interdepence; the frame would sit empty without the thread, the thread seeks the structure the frame provides. The symbiotic relationship between these materials within the artists’ practice has grown, and charts the artists ongoing practice and study of the non dualistic spiritual tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. It is of course no surprise then that Peary’s work comes into being via processes which demand labour, repetition and immense discipline in a comparable manner.

Manifestations of a period of time, Peary understands her works as records whereby each row is akin to a line of scrawl across the page of a diary. In describing her work, she writes “each piece a timeline, a lifeline. Each stitch held me in sweet motion, one more stitch, one more row, one more breath, one more day. These patch worked pieces representing all of the different parts of ourselves…all of the roles and hats we wear, manifest as organised lines and grids, as holes, as scars, as spirals that travel both inward and outward.”