KATIE MAYERS

Jenni Dutton is a multimedia artist who mainly focuses on an individual or a piece to complement their body. The main piece I am looking at is called ‘The Dementia Darning’s’ this was a piece which started in 2011 and was completely dedicated to her mother. Jenni had been a creative soul ever since her childhood but focused her subject area on her mother after she got diagnosed with dementia and ended up being her career. Her mum always loved watching Jenni worked and often referred to herself as an observer, and since her mother was so obsessed with her work she made it a way in which to help her mum remember, and still engage with her past. Jenni started off with recreating an old picture of her mum which was done on a large piece of netting hung from the ceiling, she used simple stitching techniques to produce an uncanny copy of her mum from the second world war. Originally it was hung solidly by itself but over time it started to sag and no longer resembled her mum, and this is when she realised it needed some sort of support and moved it onto a canvas which framed it in time for it to not change again. From this creation, it brought to life ‘The Dementia Darning’s’ and went on to make real-time pieces of her mother. Making her mum the subject of her work was a way for Jenni to deal with the decline into dementia for her mother.  This was very interesting for me and similar to my practice as shes dedicated it to her mother with dementia and I have dedicated it to my grandma who had dementia.