Su Richardson's first institutional retrospective, 'SOFT POWER' will be on view at Wolverhampton Art Gallery from 16 September – 10 December 2023.
Soft Power celebrates the art of Birmingham-based artist Su Richardson (b. 1947) and presents a wide array of work made at different stages of the artist’s fifty-year career. Richardson’s soft sculptures embrace and subvert the medium of crochet, traditionally considered ‘women’s work’. Her beautifully crafted objects revalidate textiles and craft-making as a fine art form.
Richardson was a notable contributor to two key feminist interventions in British art of the 1970s – the Postal Art Event, also known as ‘Feministo’, and the feminist art collective ‘Fenix’. These ground-breaking projects brought women artists from across the UK together to create work that challenged gender bias both in the art world and in their personal lives. Richardson’s iconic sculptures continue to embody a message that is still relevant and resonates with many today.
