Annie Shead’s ‘Machine Paintings’ are made with the aid of a vintage knitting machine, through the countless needles of which yarn is threaded - all locked in place by a carriage sent back and forth. Each of Shead’s paintings makes headway in the history of art because, unlike in painting (by which is here meant artworks made using paint), the recognised lineage of knitting in art is far shorter. Because of this, Shead is exposing the absurdity of art making: she is not standing on the shoulders of predecessors, harvesting from their success a credibility of her own; while knitting has long been understood in a domestic realm, with connotations of practicality and sentimentality, it has infrequently penetrated into an art context.

Charged with discourse on craft, gender, and class, Shead’s Machine Paintings transform what is otherwise private into the public, celebrating knitting beyond its domestic connotations. They harbour painterly qualities in abundance: seams and knots, never-quite-perpendicular lines, and often awkward compositions provide passages of happenstance and ‘mistake’ - constant reminders to see and understand the medium in its environment.

The vocabulary is minimalistic, relying heavily on the strength and symbolism of colour and form to convey sentiment. Abstract and often pattern-based, these paintings are born not only from the study of painting and graphic design, but from a repetitive and ritualistic process in which yarn meets labour meets art. The result is a transformation of knitting into painting, of past into present, and of ordinary into discretely extraordinary.