Since graduating in 2003, McCafferty has earned herself quite a reputation. Her work is a blend of traditional craft and contemporary, documentary-style illustration.
Charlotte Abrahams, Guardian Weekend, 2007
Artist statement:
I am an obsessive collector of printed material; considering myself to be a textile anthropologist, continually sourcing and archiving each find in a deliberate and negotiated way. It is with these printed samples that I visually narrate social engagement. I like to engage people with the work, perhaps through discussion or actual representation. In the ideas I choose to pursue the underlying theme is reportage of the here and now.
My work follows a sequence of events to complete each final piece- always in the same methodical order. Beginning with the need to involve people (perhaps a text message to gather a group of friends who are dog owners, to make a piece of work to raise awareness for the RSPCA, The Crufts Misfits, 2007), or with a search to uncover the subject through discussion (maybe meeting with a junk shop owner who uses the detritus of life to tell me the story of a deceased resident, Maggie Fowler, 2009); photographing the subjects, line drawing, fabric applique, screen-print and hand-stitch.
I have used print since 2002, following a search to find a process to link my drawings (Maggie Fowler, 2009 and Old Card Players, 2008) with cloth. Screen-print is able to translate the accuracy, immediacy and quality of line of the ink drawing onto the surface of the cotton fabrics. Each colour or pattern that you see in the work is a separate piece of cloth that has been individually cut, placed and bonded and hand stitched. The line is powerful and gives the work its narrative and identity.
My work deals with the boundaries between art and craft. Its brush with both print and stitch could be viewed as subversive decoration yet not embellishment. It is a hybrid form of all of these and its plurality is its strength.
Laura McCafferty has long since regarded her work as documentary, recording the life events of ordinary people through drawing, which she translates into large figurative dramas in which her subjects are depicted with much humour and warmth.
Jo Hall, Material Evidence Exhibition, 2009
Biography:
Born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1980. Laura now lives in Nottingham, England.