Alison Carpenter-Hughes is a mixed-media artist based at StudionAme in Leicester, recently focusing on free motion embroidery, experimenting with the sewing machine as a tool for 'drawing' or 'painting'. Themes of contrast reflect the essence of her current work, reflecting on everyday experience and folkloric symbolism. Moments of intimacy and vulnerability are revealed but also of internal power, embracing the light and shadow that encompasses us all.

Working mostly with sewn full length and partial figures, including installation and animation, Alison leaves loose hanging threads that make them seem as though they are drifting-off into a dreamlike state, highlighting the passing of time. The work exists in that hazy place between consciousness and sub-consciousness; dreams and reality.

There is a certain ambiguity to her work as each piece reveals only a fragment of their subject; the loose strands adding to their sense of incompletion, imperfection and impermanence. Indeed, free motion embroidery itself is an art form that dwells somewhere betwixt two and three-dimensional states, a breach of one sphere to another, creating a tactile sensuousness.