Annette Saker Austen is a textile and mixed‑media sculptor based in Melbourne, Australia. Her practice explores identity, memory and repair through expressive textile characters built from inherited, gifted, thrifted and found materials. Each piece is stitched slowly and intuitively, embracing imperfection and humour as essential parts of the making process. Her work transforms everyday fibres and threads - linen, wool, cotton, silk — into tactile forms that hold emotion, contradiction and quiet resilience. Annette’s sculptures celebrate the beauty of repair, the complexity of character, and the emotional intelligence of materials.
I make sculptural works with textiles — a medium that has become my second skin. After a lengthy career I am blessed with the time to savour what I have learned, and create as I want.
I love experimentation and work with curiosity and intuition, allowing materials to guide each contour, trusting that forms will reveal themselves through process, never knowing who or what they will be.
My work quietly honours all makers, and as I create, a sense of inheritance connects me to the women of my own ancestry, imagining what skills and sensibilities might be carried in my own DNA, and how I am adding to the cycle of our lineage.
Though without formal training, Annette developed her skills over a decades long career in the design and construction of textile installations Australia wide and overseas. With a reputation amongst architects and designers for innovative artistry, high end quality and complex construction, Annette brings material intelligence, craftsmanship and conceptual clarity to her sculptural work.
