Iris Fishlock

Soft bodies,
still growing

Drawing, hand-crochet and sculpture by iris fishlock. Five rooms of work, 2021–2026, built from figures that keep swelling, sprouting and growing past their own edges.

Artist @irisfishlock
Medium graphite, fibre, mixed sculpture
Pronouns she / her

Room I — 2026

Sketchbook

Working pages, photographed as they're filled

Sketchbook page: graphite figure study, crouched body with nodular head Sketchbook page: graphite figure with hand raised to a cluster of bulbous forms on the head Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies Sketchbook page: graphite studies
Sketchbook (ongoing)
Graphite and ink on paper
IF.SB · 2026

Room II — 2026

Peristalsis

Wearable fibre sculpture, hand-crocheted

Hand-crocheted striped scarf with long weighted tendrils, laid flat Detail of crocheted scarf tendrils Detail of crocheted scarf, cream wool tendrils Two crocheted tendrils held hanging from a hand Two long striped crocheted tendrils held hanging Scarf being worn, seen from behind
Peristalsis (Scarves)
Hand-crochet, wool
IF.02 · 2026 · Photographs by @hugokae_

Room III — 2022

Exhibitionist

Cast wax and resin, suspended by cord

Two hanging sculptural heads in resin and carved wood, suspended by cord and rope against a dark ground
Exhibitionist
Cast wax, resin, cord
A weighted pair hung rather than mounted: one head carved and knotted, the other cast soft and still at the seam.
IF.03 · 2022
"Head sculpted wax — could be melted or dropped and smashed to distort the shape."— sketchbook note, 2022

Development — sketchbook

Sketchbook page: sculpted wax head studies with process notes Sketchbook page: figure studies and material notes referencing Louise Bourgeois Sketchbook page: sculpted head studies and fetish-material notes

Room IV — 2022

Sketch for a painting

Sketchbook pages and a finished wall piece

Crocheted and lace wall hanging in rust and cream, with small pink crocheted forms trailing from the base
Untitled (Wall Hanging)
Hand-crochet and lace, cotton and wool
IF.04 · 2022
"I'll just do it as I see fit in the moment."— sketchbook note, 2022

Sketchbook

Sketchbook page with handwritten notes Sketchbook page: skeletal figure study and material studies labelled Vaginurty Sketchbook page: seated figure studies Sketchbook page: charred bust maquettes and crochet construction details Sketchbook page: small clay maquette and hanging figure sketch Sketchbook page: figure studies

Room V — 2021

Degree show

Installation view and sculptural studies

Installation view: tall bulbous fabric and resin sculpture on a plinth against a gallery wall, draped in grey fabric
Installation view
Mixed sculpture: stuffed fabric, resin, draped textile
IF.05 · 2021

Sculptural studies

Pale bulbous fabric and stocking sculpture hanging against a plain wall, stacked in rounded segments Contact sheet of a small ceramic creature sculpture photographed from many angles
Iris holding a cream-coloured amigurumi creature with many crocheted limbs

Iris works between drawing and fibre, returning to bodies that won't stay still: figures that swell, sprout, and grow extra joints, sculptures that keep the marks of the hand that made them.

The sketchbook and the crochet hook do the same job here, both are ways of testing how far a form can stretch before it stops being a body and becomes something else.

Based on
@irisfishlock
Medium
graphite, fibre, mixed sculpture
Pronouns
she / her