A blank calico doll the artist received as a child forms the basis of Fear & Comfort.

The doll was a gift from the children’s hospital, intended as a memento in honour

of a friend about to have heart surgery. These featureless dolls were blank canvases on which the child having surgery and their classmates could project their feelings, thereby creating souvenirs of a time and experience that could otherwise be too overwhelming for a child to process.

A group of doll-like forms is presented in the exhibition, recreating, repeating and distorting the form of the original doll. They embroidered symbols and imagery, with the intention that to stitch anxieties becomes a ritual through which unbounded emotions can be entombed within the simple form of the dolls.

The act of embroidery provides a further layer of catharsis via the tactile aspects of textile work. The hand of the artist is felt and sensed, establishing a reciprocal exercise in comfort.

Emily Murch is a Perth raised and Melbourne based artist who works with textiles, text and installation. Since graduating with Bachelor of Fine Art from Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, in 2016 she has exhibited in Melbourne and Western Australia.

History, both cultural and personal, is the starting point for Murch’s explorations into the gap between reality, fiction and canon.

Murch’s work is simultaneously playful and morbid. By tying abstract sensations to familiar objects she intends to slightly dislodge the viewer’s confidence in their own sense of perception.