Tag: Włodzimierz Cygan

Art Out and About: Spring 2023

US or abroad we’ve got lots of suggestions — 10 in fact — of exhibitions you can visit in June and beyond.

1) Christine Joy and Sara Mast: Passage 
Yellowstone Art Museum 
Billings, MT 
through July 16, 2023

Christine Joy Connecting to the Sky sculpture
Christine Joy, Connecting to the Sky, 2016. Photo courtesy of Christine Joy

https://www.artmuseum.org/project/christine-joy-and-sara-mast-passage/

Christine Joy and Sara Mast explorethe mystery of nature through the transformation of materials, texture, and form.

The large, twisted willow forms by Christine Joy are the result of a rhythmic process beginning with the hunt and harvest of willow in autumn — followed by sorting, bunding, and storing. Joy began rug braiding in the 1970s. Over time, Joy moved on from rug braiding, leading her to a period of experimentation, and ultimately to reclaiming and reorienting her love of gathering and process with willow, grounding her to the earth. Sara Mast, a descendant of miners from Cornwall, England, resides on the site of Storrs, Montana, an early Anaconda Company mining town. Today, she incorporates PEM (plasma enhanced melter) glass into her work. PEM is a byproduct of plasma gasification, an advanced waste management technology that turns any kind of trash into inert, non-toxic glass and clean fuels. Mast writes, “PEM glass is not just another art material, but represents a profound paradigm shift in using technology to heal our environmental dilemma by keeping waste out of landfills and greenhouse gases out of the air. My use of PEM glass is one way I am able to reclaim a healthy relationship with the earth.”

2) International Linen Biennial in Portneuf (BILP)
Heritage sites throughout Deschambault-Grondines 
Quebec, Canada
June 18 – October 1, 2023
https://biennaledulin.com/

Blair Tate, from the 10th Linen Biennial in Quebec
Dialogue, detail, Blair Tate, from the 10th Linen Biennial in Quebec. Photo courtesy of Blair Tate

Anneke Klein (the Netherlands) Blair Tate (United States of America) Stéphanie Jacques (Belgium), Carole Frève (Québec) will all participate in the upcoming biennial of Linen — the 10th in Portneuf. The biennial will feature two exhibitons; the work of 20 professional artist; 20 emerging artists; multiple mediation activities and a day of converences. 

3) Couples in Craft
Craft in America Museum
Los Angeles, CA
through September 24, 2023
https://www.craftinamerica.org/exhibition/couples-in-craft/

Jim and Veralee Bassler
Jim and Veralee Bassler at the opening of Couples at the Craft in America Gallery in LA.

Couples in Craft highlights artist couples that specifically work in fiber and ceramics, either collaboratively or independently. While very different in their physical qualities—malleable and rigid, vegetable and mineral—both media require methodical construction processes that can take years to master. Many of these artist couples met during their formative educational years and thus share a lifelong dedication to each other and to their respective craft. These partners support and inspire each others’ extensive pursuit of mastering materials and continued exploration of their potential. Their intuitive knowledge of process allows for layers of meaning to become integrated into the works as they are made.

Among the artists included in this exhibition are Veralee Bassler and Jim Bassler. Veralee Bassler graduated from the UCLA Art Department with a concentration in ceramics. She shared her passion for creativity, teaching, and ceramics with the students of the Los Angeles School District for 25 years. Jim Bassler graduated from UCLA with an MA in Art in 1968 and later served there as professor and department chair between 1975–2000. Jim, recipient of the American Craft Council 2022 Gold Medal, is a renown weaver whose work adapts ancient Peruvian techniques and explores a range of materials and concepts. Veralee and Jim live and work in Palm Springs, CA.

4) At Own Pace: Włodzimierz Cygan 
7th Riga International Textile and Fibre Art Triennial
Mentzendorff’s House 
Grēcinieku iela 18, Riga, Latvia
through July 27, 2023

Włodzimierz Cygan Fiber Optic weaving detail
From the series Between the LinesDetail, Włodzimierz Cygan, Linen, optic fiber, weaving, artist’s own technique. 2021. Courtesy of the artist. 

https://www.lnmm.lv/en/museum-of-decorative-arts-and-design/news/programme-of-the-7th-riga-international-textile-and-fibre-art-triennial-quo-vadis-139

Baiba Osīte: Exodus
7th Riga International Textile and Fibre Art Triennial
Art Station Dubulti 
Z. Meierovica prospekts 4, 

Baiba Osīte. XXX. 1993.
Baiba Osīte. XXX. 1993. linen, cotton, wood, artist’s own technique. Collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art. Publicity photo

Jūrmala, Latvia https://www.lnmm.lv/en/museum-of-decorative-arts-and-design/news/programme-of-the-7th-riga-international-textile-and-fibre-art-triennial-quo-vadis-139

The 7th Riga International Textile and Fibre Art Triennial,  QUO VADIS? unites 79 artists from 30 countries who were selected by an international jury from 237 submissions. Responding to the motto of the triennial, QUO VADIS? (Where Are We Going?), the authors, through their works, partake in conversations about the evolution of art and this particular field today as well as global geopolitical and social problems, engaging in self-reflection through the perspective of their time and art form. 

The Triennial features an exciting solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Polish guest-artist Włodzimierz Cygan at the Mentzendorff’s House in Riga and one featuring Latvian artist Baiba Osite.

5)  Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World
Claremont Lewis Museum of Art
Claremont, California
through September 24, 2023

Origins by Ferne Jacobs
Origins, Ferne Jacobs, 2017-2018, Craft in America, Metro Madizon

https://clmoa.org/exhibit/ferne-jacobs-a-personal-world/

Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art presents the work of Ferne Jacobs, a pioneer in fiber arts who creates unique three-dimensional sculptural forms using ancient basket-making techniques. Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World features a broad selection of her sculptures as well as books of her psychological drawings and collage diaries. 

6) Jane Balsgaard
Galleriet Hornbæk
Hornbæk, Denmark
Summer 2023

http://xn--galleriethornbk-bmb.dk/category/jane-balsgaard/

Paper Ship by Jane Balsgaard
Paper Ship by Jane Balsgaard. Photo courtesy of Jane Balsgaard

Jane Balsgaard’s work is available this summer at Susanne Risom’s Galleriet Hornbæk in Denmark.

7) Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890 – 1980
Milwaukee Art Museum
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
through July 23, 2023

https://mam.org/exhibitions/scandinavian-design/

Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980 is the first exhibition to explore the extensive design exchanges between the United States and Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland during the 20th century.  It includes works by Helena Hernmarck who moved from Sweden to the US, and Lenore Tawney, who studied with noted Finnish weaver Martta Taipale at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.

8) Indigo 
Denver Botanic Garden
York Street Location
Denver, Colorado
July 2 – November 5, 2023 

Synapse indigo weaving byPolly Barton
Synapse, Polly Barton, to appear in Indigo, at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Photo by Tom Grotta

https://www.botanicgardens.org/exhibits/indigo

Rich and alluring, the striking blue color known as indigo has inspired weavers, dyers, designers, and sculptors across the globe. This exhibition, which  contemporary artists from the United States, Nigeria, Japan and South Korea Includes several works loaned by browngrotta arts  from artists Polly BartonEduardo Portillo and Mariá DávilaChiyoko TanakaHiroyuki Shindo, and Yeonsoon Chang.

9) Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest
Bard Graduate Center Gallery
New York, New York
through July 9, 2023

https://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions/117/n-a

Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest invites you to explore the world of Navajo weaving. This dynamic gallery and online experience presents never-before-seen textiles created by Diné artists. These historic blankets, garments, and rugs from the American Museum of Natural History are situated alongside contemporary works by Diné weavers and visual artists, such as Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete.

10) Expressing Cloths: Oceanian Modeling and Shigeki Fukumoto/Shigeko Fukumoto
Aomori Contemporary Art Center
Aomori, Japan
through June 14, 2023

https://acac-aomori.jp/program/2023-1/

This exhibition features Fukumoto, who has pursued an expression that can only be achieved through “dyeing” through his insight into the theory of craftsmanship in Oceania and Japan, and handcrafted fabrics that have been handed down since before textiles, such as tapa (bark cloth) and knitted fabrics from Melanesia in the South Pacific. In recent years Shioko Fukumoto has developed works using old natural fabrics that were made and used in rural life and labor. Three works. By group, we will think about the expression that can only be achieved with cloth, and the possibilities of cloth as a medium of expression. Both Fukomotos have visited Papua, New Guinea on more than one occasion.


Art Assembled: New This Week in August

There are few things we enjoy more than introducing you all to the brilliant art of the artists we have the honor to work with. This month, we showcased the work of artists: Heidrun Schimmel, Caroline Bartlett, Sue Lawty, Zofia Butrymowicz, and Włodzimierz Cygan. Read on to see what these artists have been busy creating!

Heidrun Schimmel
1hsc Behind the Lines of Thread, Heidrun Schimmel, cotton, steel, paper, 55″ x 74″ x 3.5″, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This German artist, Heidrun Schimmel, consistently impresses us with her detailed, handstitched artwork. Her ideas often stem from the soft, unstable and flexible qualities of the textile materials she works with. For the realization of her ideas, she stitches white cotton thread by hand onto transparent silk; which she has noted to be the simplest material and simplest technique: the stitch.

When asked about her process, Schimmel stated:

“Stitching by hand exclusively, I take my ideas from specific qualities of the thread and the stitching process. Behind the Lines of Thread shows the so-called “left side” of the thread lines. The tensions between these thread lines protect the “right side,” which the viewer cannot see. Each piece has its own individual shape and at the same time it enters into a relationship with all the other parts. “

Caroline Bartlett
21cb Every Ending has a New Beginning, Caroline Bartlett, hand-painted and mono-printed, stitched and manipulated linen, cotton threads 30” x 96”, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Up next, we have the innovative work of UK textile artist, Caroline Bartlett. With textiles at the core of her practice, Bartlett’s artwork is often created in reference to historical, social and cultural associations. Bartlett’s practice is driven by questions – for example around the tensions between personal recollection and the public ways of remembrance and the potential of materials and objects to trigger recollection and association.

“As age and experience expand, I find myself more aware of how I work,” said Caroline Bartlett. “I continue to actively need fresh challenges while knowing and recognizing limitations of self and the art world in general. Again the push/pull. No room for complacency.”

What a profound lens into her creative practice!

Sue Lawty
Sue Lawty 30sl Tacitum II hemp and linen on cotton warp 11.75” x 8.5” x 1″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Tacitum II was created by acclaimed artist, Sue Lawty. Lawty is an England-based artist who is widely known for her meticulous exploration of the mediums she works with.

She has charted the journey of her understated and abstract works – stating that they are strongly influenced by a comprehensive engagement with remote landscape, geology and the passage of time.

Lawty’s work is rooted in the emotional, spiritual, and physical engagement with land through construction and repetitive structure, and the inspired creation behind her pieces shows!

Zofia Butrymowicz
7zb Marco, Zofia Butrymowicz, wool, 37″ x 34″, 1966. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This next piece holds a special place in our hearts as it comes from the late Zofia Butrymowicz. Butrymowicz has been recognized globally for her innovative works in the ‘60s and ‘70s – often using thread she spun herself in Poland during the post-war period when supplies were in a great shortage.

This work is made from wool sourced from Canadian artist, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Back in 1969, Butrymowicz visited Canadian weaver, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette and her husband, painter and ceramicist, Claude Vermette, outside Montreal where the couple lived and worked. Zofia stayed with the Vermettes for several months, using Mariette’s looms to create tapestries that were displayed with Claude’s ceramics at a local gallery.

To create this piece, Zofia “painted” the weavings made from Canadian wool with colors and shadings of yarns, including only a shimmering suggestion of a shape, often a circle, as she had done in other tapestries, but the glisten and sumptuousness of the yarn from Rousseau-Vermette used in this particular piece sets it apart from her other works.

19wc NOW, Włodzimierz Cygan, wool, sisal, 124″ x 62″, 2000. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Last, but not least, we highlighte the work of Włodzimierz Cygan. Cygan is known globally for his textile innovations. Growing up, Cygan lived in a city in Poland called Łódź, which has very strong textile traditions that inspired him to create the works of art you see today.

“When trying to determine why the means of artistic expression in tapestry was becoming archaic,” said Cygan, “I realized that one of the reasons might have to do with the custom of treating the threads of the weft as the chief medium of the visual message. . . . These observations led me to wonder how the artistic language of textiles might benefit from a warp whose strands would not be parallel and flat but convergent, curved or three dimensional ….”

As a result of these explorations, in some of Cygan’s works, the warp changes direction, enabling the weaving of circles or arcs.

We hope you enjoyed learning about these prominent contemporary artist.s If you like what we have highlighted this month, keep your eye out for more – we keep them coming every week.

In the meantime, mark your calendar for our upcoming Art in the Barn event, Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (October 8-16, 2022), it’s an event you won’t want to miss! Click here for more information and to reserve your spot.


Art in the Barn at browngrotta arts this May – Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textile and mixed media art

Włodzimierz Cygan, Stéphanie Jacques
On the wall Włodzimierz Cygan, sculptures by Stéphanie Jacques. photo by Tom Grotta

This May, browngrotta arts presents their Spring 2021 Art in the Barn exhibition, Crowdsourcing the Collective: survey of textile and mixed media art  (May 7 – 15, 2021). It will be accompanied by our 53rd catalog, available on browngrotta.com after May 6th.

Chang Yeonsoon, Naomi Kobayashi
Chang Yeonsoon, The Path which leads to the center GR-202101, teflon mesh, pure gold leaf, eco-friendly resin, 8″ x 8″ x 4.25″, 2021; ITO Naomi Kobayashi, Coma, cotton thread, 20″ x 20″ x 2.25″, 1982. photo by Tom Grotta

The 40 artists in Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textile and mixed media art illustrate the vitality of art textiles, ceramics and mixed media. The growing prominence of these art forms finds them the subject of exhibitions in major museums, intermixed with paintings and traditional sculpture in ways unthinkable a decade ago. The journey of the artists in Crowdsourcing the Collective tells us much about where craft and fiber art are now, and about how they got here. Some of the artists began working during craft and fiber art’s less popular period in the ’80s and ‘90s; some have been working since fiber art’s first heyday in the ’70s. Their education, experience and inspiration vary. They differ in material and approach. They come from more than a dozen countries around the world and the influence of those places is often evident in their work.

works by Polly Sutton
Works by Polly Sutton: Quatro, cedar bark, cane, 5” x 8.375” x 8.125”, 2022; Wila, cedar bark, ash, spruce root, 6.875” x 10.75” x 9.75”, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

This exhibition reflects the astonishing range of materials and techniques that make this work so well regarded. Tapestries of silk and agave, sculptures of seaweed, seagrass and willow, wall works made of sandpaper, hemp and horsehair and ceramics of Shigaraki clay will all be included. The scope of these artists’ preoccupations are on view here, too — from environmental concerns, to questions of the cosmos and identity, to explorations of material and process. It includes new work, work from earlier periods and work from artists we have invited specifically for this exhibition. Come and see what we have compiled!

Reserve a space on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crowdsourcing-the-collective-a-survey-of-textiles-and-mixed-media-art-tickets-292520014237

Exhibition Dates/Hours

Opening & Artists Reception
Saturday, May 7th: 11AM to 6PM (300 Visitor Cap)

Remainder of the exhibition
Sunday, May 8th: 11AM to 6 PM (40 visitors/hour)
Monday, May 9th – Saturday, May 14th: 10AM to 5PM (40 visitors/hour)

Final Day
Sunday, May 15th: 11AM to 6PM (40 visitors/ hour)

Address
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897

Safety protocols
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • We will follow current state and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 • As of March 1, 2022, masks are not required • No narrow heels please (barn floors)


Artist Focus: Włodzimierz Cygan

Detail: Cycle Tapping: May, Włodzimierz Cygan, viscose, linen and fiber optic, 117” x 34”, 2014

In a recent catalog of Włodzimierz Cygan’s work, Dariusz Lesnikowski, writes that commenting on Cygan’s work is both easy and hard. “Easy because his works fascinate, stimulate imagination, and trigger a variety of associations and inspirations.” Difficult because his work has been analyzed often and “[h]e is one of those artists who have significantly reshape the art of weaving, daring to overcome the traditionally guaranteed limitations of his field of art.” According to Lesnikowski, fibers in Cygan’s work are constantly used in new ways, meeting the warp in successive places for interlacing and each time providing unpredictable surprises. (“Woven on the bright side of imagination,” Dariusz Lesnikowski, Włodzimierz Cygan: Unique Fiber, Gallery Amcor, Lodz, Poland, 2020).

Traps, wool, viscose, linen, sisal, fiber optic installation 92” x 106”, 2019

Cygan’s work has been exhibited in Europe, Asia and Latin America, including the Jean Lurcat Museum in France, the Kyoto Art Center in Japan and the National Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica. He was awarded a Bronze Medal at the 6th International Fiber Art BiennialFrom Lausanne to Beijingand the Grand Prix, 12th International Triennial of Tapestry. Cygan is reknown for his textile innovations. “When trying to determine why the means of artistic expression in tapestry was becoming archaic,” he has written, “I realized that one of the reasons might have to do with the custom of treating the threads of the weft as the chief medium of the visual message. . . . These observations led me to wonder how the artistic language of textiles might benefit from a warp whose strands would not be parallel and flat but convergent, curved or three dimensional … .” As a result of these explorations, in some of Cygan’s works, the warp changes direction, enabling the weaving of circles or arcs. 

Detail of Miracle, Włodzimierz Cygan linen, wool and sisal, 56.5” x 47” x 6.5” 2006

For more than 10 years, Cygan has been teaching at Gdańsk Academy and Architecture of Textiles’ Institute at Łódź Technical University. Miracle, which won the Bronze medal at the 6th From Lausanne to Beijing, features a hypnotic curve, that draws the viewer into the heart of the work. “The artist shapes the rhythm of the composition, consciously interfering with the structure of the fabric. Like a calligrapher, he builds the form by weaving the thread of the weft through the framework of the warp,” writes Lesnikowski. “Regularity (the general rule) confronts irregularity (modifications) of the warp.”

Blue/Green Weaving, Włodzimierz Cygan, polyester, linen, sisal, fiber optic, 41” x 41” x 15”, 2018

In 2004, during the 11th Lodz Triennial, Cygan met Danish artist Astrid Krogh

who worked with optical fibers. She gave a lecture for Cygan’s students and provided him the optical material that was not available in

Poland at the time and gave him another opportunity to experiment. He created a work entitled, Dear Astrid as a thank you. He has created several works since using optical fibers, including Blue/Green Weaving in 2018 and Traps in 2019. You can see more examples of Cygan’s work on our website: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/cygan.php.


Adaptation Opens Saturday at browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT

from left to right works by Paul Furneaux and Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila. Photo by Tom Grotta

This Saturday at 11 am, our Spring Art in the Barn exhibition: Adaption: Artists Respond to Change opens to the public. We can’t describe it better than ArteMorbida: the Textile Arts Magazine did. “This project is born from the reflection on how the world of art and its protagonists, the artists, had to rethink and redesign their action, when the pandemic, significantly affecting the global lifestyle, compelled everyone to a forced and repeated isolation,” the magazine wrote. “But the need to adapt their responses to change, generated by the complicated health situation, was only the beginning of a broader reflection that led the two curators [Rhonda Brown and Tom Grotta] to note that change itself is actually an evolutionary process immanent in human history, generative, full of opportunities and unexpected turns.”

Tapestries by Carolina Yrarrázaval. Photo by Tom Grotta

The 48 artists in Adaptation pose, and in some cases answer, a series of interesting questions about art. Does it offer solutions for dealing with daily stress? For facing larger social and global issues? How do artists use art to respond to unanticipated circumstances in their own lives. The work in the exhibition offers a wide variety of responses to these questions.

Several of artists wrote eloquently for the Adaptation catalog about how art has helped them manage the stress and upheaval of the past year. Ideally, for those who attend Adaptation: Artist’s Respond to Change that calming effect will be evident and even shared. 

pictured: works by Lawrence LaBianca, Włodzimierz Cygan, Chiyoko Tanaka, Gizella Warburton, Norma Minkowitz, Polly Adams Sutton

Wlodzimierz Cygan of Poland says the time of the pandemic allowed him to draw his attention to a “slightly different face of Everyday, the less grey one.”  He found that, “slowing down the pace of life, sometimes even eliminating some routine activities, helps one to taste each day separately and in the context of other days. Time seems to pass slower, I can stay focused longer.” Life has changed in Germany, Irina Kolesnikova told us. Before the pandemic, “we would travel a lot, often for a short time, a few days or a weekend. We got used to seeing the variety in the world, to visit different cities, to go to museums, to get acquainted with contemporary art. Suddenly, that life was put on pause, our social circle reduced to the size of our immediate environment.” Kolesnikova felt a need to dive deeper into herself and create a new series of small works, Letters from Quarantine, “to just work and enjoy the craft.”

clockwise: Adela Akers, Irina Kolesnikova, Ane Henriksen, Nancy Koenigsberg, Laura Foster Nicholson, Lawrence LaBianca, Gizella Warburton. Photo by Tom Grotta

Other artists were moved to create art that concerned larger social issues. Karyl Sisson’s Fractured III, makes use of vintage paper drinking straws to graphically represent in red and white the discontents seen and felt in America as the country grappled with police violence against Black Americans, polarized election politics and larger issues like climate change and the environment.  Climate change and the danger of floods and fire were reflected in the work of the several artists in Adaptation. New Yorker Nancy Koenigsberg created Approaching Storm, adding an even greater density of the grey, coated-copper wire that she generally works with to build a darkened image that serves as a warning for the gravity of current events.

High water appears in Laura Foster Nicholson’s view of Le Procuratie, which envisions a flooded Venice, metallic threads illustrating the rising waters. Works by Adela Akers and Neha Puri Dhir were influenced by wildfires in California and India, respectively.

left to right: Karyl Sisson, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Sue Lawty, Jin -Sook So

Still other artists found way to use their art as a meditative practice in order to face their sense of personal and public dislocation. For Jennifer Falck Linssen, the solution was to turn off all media, go outside and find inspiration in morning and evening light. For Paul Furneaux, initially cut off from his studio, the garden became an obsession as he undertook an extensive renovation.  Returning to art making, the spring colors, greens and yellows he had seen while gardening, created a new palette for his work.  Feeling the need for complete change, Hisako Sekijima turned away from basket finishing. Instead, immersing herself in the underlying processes of plaiting. Her explorations became both meditative and a process that led to new shapes. 

Experience these artists’ reflections on change in person. Schedule your appointment for Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/adaptation-artists-respond-to-change-tickets-148974728423

The full-color catalog(our 51st) for Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change is available Friday May 7th:

http://store.browngrotta.com/adaption-artist-respond-to-change/


Art Assembled: New This Week in December

Anyone else happy to say goodbye to 2020 and hello to new, brighter beginnings? We know we are.

The last month in 2020 certainly kept us busy at browngrotta arts. From introducing new art, to having our Volume 50 exhibition come to a close – there hasn’t been a dull moment for us.

In this blog, we’re charting the new art we’ve introduced to the public in the month of December, including works from: Carolina Yrarrázaval, Włodzimierz Cygan, and Caroline Bartlett.

Detail of Tapíz “El abrazo" by Carolina Yrarrázaval
Detail of Tapíz “El abrazo” by Carolina Yrarrázaval, 2017.
Photo by Tom Grotta.

Carolina Yrarrázaval is a Chilean artist known for her impeccable textile work. When asked about her work and her aspirations, Yrarrázaval said:

“Throughout my entire artistic career I have devoted myself to investigating traditional textile techniques from diverse cultures, especially Pre-Columbian techniques, trying to adapt them to my creative needs,” said Carolina Yrarrázaval. “Abstraction has always been present as an aesthetic aim, informing my choice of materials, forms, textures and colors. The simple proportions are guided by an intuitive sense that avoids the use of mathematical formulas.”

Detail of Traps by Włodzimierz Cygan
Detail of Traps by Włodzimierz Cygan
wool, viscose, linen, sisal, fiber optic installation 92” x 106”, 2019

Włodzimierz Cygan is a Polish artist who’s widely known for his intriguing and detailed weaving and tapestry work. Growing up, Cygan lived in a city called Łódź, which has very strong textile traditions that inspired him to create his own works of art.  “I use optical fiber mono-filament with increased light transmission for warp and weft as a complementary material for the textile structure, “ says the artist. In doing so, he is able to connect two contradictions: durability of textile materials and a constant change of the light. 

Detail of Meeting Point by Caroline Bartlett
Detail of Meeting Point by Caroline Bartlett
Mono-printed, stitched and manipulated linen, cotton threads, 60” x 16.5,” 2020.
Photo by Tom Grotta.

Caroline Bartlett is a UK artist who’s widely known for her textile work – which provides the means and materials to process and articulate ideas in relation to content in reference to historical, social and cultural associations. These have significance in relation to touch and their ability to trigger memory in Bartlett’s work, imprinting, erasing and reworking, stitching, folding and unfolding become defining characteristics.

At browngrotta arts, we’re excited to begin the new year and to continue to bring forth art that inspires and incites emotion. We’re determined to continue to bring light into the world with art that connects us all as one. Keep your eye out for all the exciting things to come!


Art Assembled: New This Week February

Structural Discussion VI, Hisako Sekijima cedar and walnut, 10.75” x 14.5” x 7”, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Winter is slowly but surely coming to a close (finally!) and the sunny months are not too far ahead. Also rapidly approaching is this year’s Art in the Barn exhibition: Art + Identity: An International View, which seeks to take an expansive look at identity and art in a global context.

We started February’s “New This Week” series with Structural Discussion VI by Hisako Sekijima. Woven using cedar and walnut, Sekijima’s Structural Discussion VI’s explores structure, form and shape. Though Sekijima’s baskets were not created to function in a utilitarian manner she feels that they have been a useful tool in exploring herself. Unlike traditional basketmakers, Sekijima has chosen to not work with one specific plant throughout her life, but instead work with various plant materials. Her openness to other plant materials has allowed her to explore and experiment with each material’s sculptural possibilities.

Material Pleasures: Artemisia, Lia Cook, acrylic on linen, dyes on rayon; woven, 53” x 77” 1993. Photo by Tom Grotta.

The sensual nature of Lia Cook’s Material Pleasures: Artemisia is sure to immediately captivate the viewer. Cook’s Material Pleasures series explores the “sensuality of the woven image” and the emotional response that comes with it. Cook has continued this exploration of sensuality and emotion in her current work, combining it with technology that measures and maps emotional responses.

Orchid, Marianne Kemp, horsehair, gold lures thread, wooden frame, 15” x 18.5” x 2”. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Next up was Marianne Kemp’s stitched and woven Orchid. Dyed red horsehair woven in between a delicate herringbone background brings light to Kemp’s supreme eye for detail. For Kemp weaving is a form of meditation. “It is the only time of day that I do one thing at the time and think (solely) about one thing,” Kemp explains. Weaving allows Kemp to give her brain a rest and explore her creative intuition.

Blue/Green Weaving, Włodzimierz Cygan, polyester, linen, sisal, fiber optic, 41” x 41” x 15”. Photo by Tom Grotta.

We concluded February with  Włodzimierz Cygan’s Blue/Green Weaving. The piece, which is designed with both textiles and fiber optics, resembles a peacock feather in daylight and slowly shifts shades in the dark. Cygan, a Polish artist, is an innovator in the field of fiber art, challenging the boundaries of the medium.


Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog Cover Naoko Serino and Mary Yagi

Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

It’s big! It’s beautiful (if we do say so ourselves –and we do)! The catalog for our 30th anniversary is now available on our new shopping cart. The catalog — our 46th volume — contains 196 pages (plus the cover), 186 color photographs of work by 83 artists, artist statements, biographies, details and installation shots.

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Naoko Serino Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Michael Radyk Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Lilla Kulka Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Jo Barker Spread

The essay, is by Janet Koplos, a longtime editor at Art in America magazine, a contributing editor to Fiberarts, and a guest editor of American Craft. She is the author of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (Abbeville, 1990) and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). We have included a few sample spreads here. Each includes a full-page image of a work, a detail shot and an artist’s statement. There is additional artists’ biographical information in the back of the book. Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art can be purchased at www.browngrotta.com http://store.browngrotta.
com/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-30-years-in-art/.
Our shopping cart is mobile-device friendly and we now take PayPal.


SOFA Sneak Peek: Wlodzimierz Cygan’s Textile Fiber Optic Artwork

2-5wc Wlodzimierz Cygan, From the Cycle Tapping: March, May, April, June, 2014, viscose, linen and fiber optic 111.5” x 28”; 117” x 34”; 112” x 23”; 120” x 33”. Photo by Tom Grotta

2-5wc Wlodzimierz Cygan, From the Cycle Tapping: March, May, April, June, 2014, viscose, linen and fiber optic
111.5” x 28”; 117” x 34”; 112” x 23”; 120” x 33”. Photo by Tom Grotta

This November, browngrotta arts will feature four textiles of fiber optic monofilament by innovative Polish artist, Wlodzimierz Cygan, in its booth # 921 at SOFA Chicago 2016. The four works, titled March, April, May and June, are from the Cycle Tapping series. Works from this series have been shown in China in 2014 in the From Lausanne to Beijing Fiberart Biennial and at Asia-Europe III which opened this month at the Textile Museum in Krefeld, Germany then travels to the Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland and the Janina Monkute-Marks Museum in Kedainial, Lithuania. The works in Asia-Europe III are based on technical innovation and on diversity of material. Participating artists have experimented and perfected the technique of their choice. “I use optical fiber mono-filament with increased light transmission for warp and weft as a complementary material for the textile structure, “ says the artist. In doing so, he is able to connect two contradictions: durability of textile materials and a constant change of the light. The woven, flexible light in these works is constantly changing its intensity, “like the passing of time transformed by seasons which slowly and gently create vibrant poetic stories,” he says. “Shadows cast on the walls play an importnat role in planning the cracks, holes, irregular and uneven edges of my compositions.” Włodzimierz Cygan’s work has been exhibited in Europe and abroad, including the Jean Lurcat Museum in France, the Kyoto Art Center in Japan and the National Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica. SOFA Chicago opens November 2nd and runs through November 6th at the Navy Pier. For more information visit: http://www.sofaexpo.com.


Artboom Artists Introduction: Gudrun Pagter and Włodzimierz Cygan

Włodzimierz Cygan and Gudrun Pagter tapestry details. Photos by Tom Grotta

Włodzimierz Cygan and Gudrun Pagter tapestry details. Photos by Tom Grotta

Among the 33 accomplished artists featured in Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career, are two artists from Europe, Gudrun Pagter and Włodzimierz Cygan who have not shown with browngrotta arts before. She creates strong graphic imagery in her tapestries, which reference architecture, with narrow lines and changes in color fields. ” In my works” she explains, “I consistently probe and explore concrete artistic idioms. I am engaged in a constant process of exploring the picture plane through a highly disciplined structuring of geometrical form elements and lines and through a restricted color spectrum.” Pagter’s work has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Danish Museum of Decorative Arts, Copenhagen, the Central Museum in Lodz, Poland, at the 14th International Tapestry Triennial and in China, at the 5th and 6th Internaitonal Fiber Art Biennials, From Lausanne to Beijing, where she received a Silver Medal and an Excellence Award. Włodzimierz Cygan’s

Gudrun Pagter catalog spread from artboom Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career

Gudrun Pagter catalog spread from artboom Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career

work has also been exhibited in Europe and abroad, including the Jean Lurcat Museum in France, the Kyoto Art Center in Japan and the National Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica. He was awarded a Bronze Medal at the 6th International Fiber Art Biennial, From Lausanne to Beijing and the Grand Prix,12th International Triennial of Tapestry. Cygan is reknown for his textile innovations. “When trying to determine why the means of artistic expression in tapestry was becoming archaic,” he has written, “I realised that one of the reasons might have to do with the custom of treating the threads of the weft as the chief medium of the visual message. . . . These observations led me to wonder how the artistic language of textiles might benefit from a warp whose strands would not be parallel and flat but convergent, curved or three dimensional. . . .” The result, in some of Cygan’s works, the warp changes direction, the strands enable the weaving of circles or arcs. For more than 10 years, Cygan has been teaching at Gdańsk Academy and Architecture of Textiles’ Institute at Łódź Technical University. Miracle, the work that the artist selected for Artboom, Miracle, which won the Bronze medal at the 6th From Lausanne to Beijing, features a hypnotic curve, that draws the viewer into the heart of the work. Artboom is open at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, Connecticut, for 10 days only. April 30th from 12-6 p.m.; May 1st to May 8th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.. For more information, call: 203-834-0623. The 88-page, full color catalog, can be ordered at: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c41.php.

Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career Catalog cover

Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career Catalog cover