"I grew up visiting natural history museums. Within the stillness, I found a rich source of wonder and imagining and the link between these visits and my work is plain to see."

Shauna Richardson has completely turned the art of crochet on its head, her work defying expectations of the craft. Inspired by a love of natural history, Richardson's work demonstrates an eye for detail and the academic study of natural forms. Her beautifully crafted life-size crochet animal sculptures are instantly recognisable, as is her Crochetdermy technique. Crochetdermy is a term invented by Richardson herself and translates to "Crochet-skin" while also hinting at "taxidermy", which her work resembles at a distance. Richardson produces her Crochetdermy animals using just one simple crochet stitch, worked in different directions to highlight anatomy, to create animal ‘skin’ directly onto a rigid form. 

This autumn, the Horniman Museum in London will be displaying some of Richardson's work in an exciting and illuminating exhibition: EVOLUTION of The Artist and The Exhibited Works. Part natural history, part anthropology, part story-telling, this exhibition will feature family trees, graphs, diagrams and, naturally, Richardson's realistic life-size Crochetdermy animals. Richardson's own life and development as an artist will be on display, and visitors will be able to chart her inherited traits, skills learned and adaptation to the environment as if she were one of the natural history species herself. 

"Within natural history collections we find all too many species now tragically extinct but without this visual reminder, perhaps people would forget about conservation." Shauna Richardson

EVOLUTION of The Artist and The Exhibited Works takes place from 29 September 2018 until 17 March 2019.

www.shaunarichardson.com