Patricia Armour’s Statement

What are these women feeling? They are like images on a bill board being stripped away and replaced. Being in one place, but wishing they were somewhere else. Are they thinking of home? of coming home? dreaming of somewhere else? Where do they want to be? We are looking into their souls.

In Greek, the word psyche means soul and can also be represented by a moth or butterfly. The myth of Psyche became the story of the soul touched by divine love, but which, by reason of the mistakes made, had to undergo some tribulations before having access to happy immortality. This is why you will see a moth in each of these tapestries. It hovers in the foreground – reluctant to move on to the next world.

Patricia Armour’s Biography

Trish is based in Wellington , New Zealand and has been weaving tapestry for over 20 years. She has exhibited in New Zealand and the United States of America . She has worked in collaboration with leading NZ Artists and has work in private collections in the USA, Japan and New Zealand, including a collaborative work being part of the Rutherford Collection, now held at Te Papa (the National Museum), Wellington. Trish has studied tapestry in New Zealand with leading international tapestry weavers and in 1994 attended West Dean College in Chichester , UK (with the assistance of a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant for overseas study).

Trish’s tapestries convey a sense of space, light and atmosphere to create a haunting mysticism in which the viewer can read poetry into the work or see something emerge that may or may not be there. Her work varies in size from fine miniatures to large murals. The time she spent at West Dean College in the UK , and inspiration from haunting neolithic sites and the great tapestries of Europe . Greek mythology, Celtic legend, her own spirituality and ancient history also have a strong influence in her work.