[press]
[<<<] [>>>] click on image to enlarge
© tracey moberly 20060504.Rhmney.jpg
Rhymney Valley Express
Tracey Moberly
Tracey: text-me-up
Thursday May 4 2006
TEXT speak and the romancing of the sexes is the subject of a Rhymney Valley artist's latest exhibition.
Gilfach-born Tracey Moberly's Text-Me-Up-Five opens at her gallery in London today.
"They look quite ridiculous," Tracey, aged 38, said of her pieces that combine Victorian art with contemporary culture.
Tracey has woven text messages from male friends into murals based on the traditional home Sweet Home welcome signs that adorned the homes of the working class up until the 1970s.
Tracey, who has saved every text she received since 1999, said: "The exhibition looks at communication between the sexes and texting.
"I've used a text from a Soho sex shop owner to one from an ex rock start. The whole point was to study the role of women in the twenty-first century."
Among the messages immortalised in cross stitch are one from Tracey's friend Bill Drummond, formerly from the band KLF.
"You know how their texts can be very macho," she said. ~"I just wanted to capture that and show how amusing they can be."
But Tracey insists she is not attacking the male species and the language of men: "I'm pondering over it," she said. It's more about highlighting the way they talk than attacking it."
And are her famous muses happy to have their private messages transformed into art for all to see?
"They love it! Bill [Drummond] especially loves the exhibition."
The texts were also translated into a play broadcast on radio on New Year's Eve.
***If you're in London in the next few weeks, check out Tracey's exhibition at The Foundry in Shoreditch. It opens today, Thursday, May 4 and entry is free. For more information, call 07951608787 or email text-me-up-five at foundry.tv. Or go to sanderswood.com
