2024 Emerging Contemporaries Exhibition Catalogue

Adelaide Butler
ARTIST STATEMENT
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
How do we understand early modern english
women today, over 400 years later and on the
opposite side of the world? Their histories are
constantly shaping our lives, and our current
perceptions change the way we look back
through time. So how can we ensure that their
history is not relegated to irrelevance, nor
blindly celebrated through nostalgia?
The early modern women’s embroidery
practices, long overlooked and ignored, have
been reimagined as their portraits come
together, stitch by stitch, to animate the motion
of sewing. Through the embodied act of
stitching, their stories are carried into the
present.
Adelaide Butler is an emerging interdisciplinary
artist currently living and working between
Ngunnawal and Wurundjeri Country. Her work
explores how we understand the past in a
contemporary context through a feminist lens;
centring women’s narratives, particularly in
domestic spaces. Adelaide recently graduated
with a Bachelor of Arts / Bachelor of Visual Arts
(Honours) from the Australian National
University.
She has had the privilege of exhibiting at major
Australian institutions including the National
Gallery of Victoria as well as in international
exhibitions.
Image: Adelaide Butler | “In her moment of triumph. – Elizabeth Tudor”, 2023 | Photo: Brenton McGeachie