Rachel Ratten, Construction of Colour #22 (detail), installed in the Timaru Patchwork and Quilters exhibition, Woven Visions: Quilts as Art, the Aigantighe Art Gallery.

Rachel Ratten is a Timaru-based artist and member of the Timaru Patchwork and Quilters Group. Ratten holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury where she specialized in painting, she also is an accomplished printmaker and textile artist.

There are two quilts by Rachel Ratten currently on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery in the Timaru Patchwork and Quilters exhibition, Woven Visions: Quilts as Art.

Construction of Colour #22 (detail) exemplifies Ratten’s unique and contemporary approach to quilting that blends the domestic tradition with the visual language of Modernism.

The artwork plays with the geometries usually found in quilts, swapping uniform patch-worked squares for segments of many different shapes, sizes and colours. This creates an asymmetrical composition of sharp angles and colour contrasts for the eye to explore.

Ratten’s artwork continues a practice helmed by female artists in the mid-twentieth century, such as Anni Albers, who worked to elevate the ‘feminine crafts’ to the status of fine art. This movement was a response to gender imbalances in the arts which devalued ‘women’s work’, but was also a response to the growing prevalence of mass-produced products. It sought to revalue homemade objects and good craftsmanship, and in turn, skilled women makers.

Construction of Colour #22 is a reminder of this history and of the boundary-pushing artistic possibilities of the familiar quilt.
The Timaru Patchwork and Quilters exhibition, Woven Visions: Quilts as Art, will be on display at the Aigantighe Art Gallery until 9th March 2025.

Rachel Ratten, Construction of Colour #22