Angela Ferolla has had a long relationship with Fremantle Arts Centre. She’s been a popular tutor for 15 years – teaching adults and kids a range of textile-related skills from sewing machine basics to screen printing. She’s also been part of FAC’s install crew for the last two years.

Having studied textiles and visual arts at university, Angela ran a business making screen printed clothes for 10 years before returning to study fashion and textiles at TAFE. From here she moved to Japan to complete a fashion internship and cemented her love for fashion and textiles that tell a story.

After a successful and varied career with stints teaching textiles, designing costumes and taking on commercial commissions, Angela has returned to her fine arts practice in recent years.

For A Forest of Hooks and Nails Angela pays homage to the ancient flora that would have grown on the site we now know as Fremantle Arts Centre before the building was erected.

In her meticulous fashion, Angela created a pattern made up of 20 different plant and flower species to screen print directly onto the concrete floor in one of the passages which connect FAC’s gallery spaces.

To install the work, each flower was printed, hand painted and then re-printed in acrylic paint to create a seamless design.

Fellow FAC installer Phoebe Tran assisting with install of Angela Ferolla’s A particular garden before. Image courtesy of Angela Ferolla

Located in a thoroughfare, the work will likely wear away over the course of the exhibition, a choice Angela says reflects the transient delicacy of the natural environment.

Adorning the walls in the same corridor, Angela has hand stitched each plant individually, creating a fragile record of each species.

Angela Ferolla, A particular garden before, 2021, screenprinted and handpainted acrylic paint on concrete, dimensions variable. Photography by Rebecca Mansell

Angela Ferolla, A particular garden before (detail), 2021, screenprinted and handpainted acrylic paint on concrete, dimensions variable. Photography by Rebecca Mansell

Angela Ferolla, Bossiaea Eriocarpa, 2021, hand stitching on cotton organdy, 29 x 29cm. Photography by Rebecca Mansell

To find out what’s next for Angela follow her on Instagram @angela_ferolla or enrol in one of her classes.

A Forest of Hooks and Nails is open 10am – 5pm daily until Sunday 14 March. Free entry