Sensitised and sentimental at Tweed Regional Gallery

Regional artist Melissa Spratt is a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), meaning she has an acute sense of her surroundings.

Understanding this gave her the answers she’d always sought and allowed her to explore her heightened sense of emotions and responses through art in her new exhibition Sensitised and Sentimental.

Spratt’s finger-knitting provides a therapeutic practice that she finds comforting and sensory. In using wool, her process and artworks offer a contradiction: the conflicting relationship in the properties of wool which can be soft or rough, warming or cooling, and can irritate or soothe.

The artist said the tactile nature of textile work was her preferred way of translating her thoughts and feelings.

“During COVID-19 and the year preceding, I found out I identify as a Highly Sensitive Person,” Spratt said.

“I thought everyone was walking around seeing and feeling everything in similar ways to me, but as it turns out, being an HSP means that I am more aware, receptive and emotionally sensitive to my surroundings.”

Spratt shares her experiences by using long strands of finger-knitted woollen chains spelling out short statements and longer stream-of-consciousness phrases in bold colours across her artworks.

“I felt vulnerable and initially hesitated to share these works as I was still understanding this new place of knowledge I found myself in,” she said.

“I thought I would be judged and not taken seriously, and sometimes I still do. All my achievements and the encouraging feedback convinced me there was an audience for this body of work.

“My new works explore my own inner contemplations, sensitivities and sentimentalities and are a reminder for all of us that being sensitive does not mean being weak.”

Melissa Spratt will host the free school holiday Art Play for young people aged 5 to 12 on October 2 and October 4 at 11am.

Sensitised and Sentimental is on display until Sunday, November 17. For more information, head to gallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/whats-on