Su Richardson

Su Richardson radically reimagined the domestic sphere, turning the intimate languages of crochet and textile work into powerful tools of feminist critique and artistic expression. Throughout her career, she challenged conventional notions of femininity and domesticity by transforming traditional female skills into critical and conceptual art forms. By doing so, she expanded the reach of feminist art in the 1970s, integrating her own experiences of motherhood, household responsibilities, and everyday labor into a practice that was both personal and socially engaged. Richardson’s work is characterized by a playful, subversive sensibility that blends humor with critical commentary, turning ordinary domestic materials into instruments of reflection and resistance. She explored the intersections of personal narrative, gendered labor, and social critique, demonstrating how craft could carry intellectual and political weight. Her aesthetic anticipated later countercultural movements that fused craft with public and performative interventions, such as yarn bombing and guerrilla knitting. By combining visual wit, domestic objects, and conceptual rigor, Richardson opened new pathways for subsequent generations of female British artists. Her practice remains a powerful example of how the ordinary and the personal can become potent tools for critique, engagement, and creative experimentation, emphasizing the transformative potential of art rooted in lived experience and feminist inquiry. ...