We end 2022 with an exciting international grouping of works from artists located in Venezuela, Korea/Sweden, Japan and Spain, which were featured in New This Week this December.
First up, Cimebreante by the talented couple, Maria Dávila and Eduardo Portillo. The pair take an experimental approach to all aspects of their artwork — sourcing, technique and materials. They have spearheaded the techniques of rearing silk worms in Venezuela, weaving with locally sourced fibers and dyeing with natural dyes. They were inspired to include natural indigo in their innovative works by visits to Orinoco and the Amazon. They are recipients of Smithsonian Art Research Fellowship and Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Residencies.
In the 80s, Jin-Sook So who has spent time in Korea, Sweden and Japan, began treating metals, such as stainless steel mesh, like textiles; bleaching, braiding, twisting, and oxidizing them, burnishing them with gold, silver and copper nitrate, using brushes, blow torches and wax. In her work for the Lausanne Biennial in 1989, she worked directly with flat steel mesh, developing volume by pleating it manually, repeating and twisting the form and then coloring it with a blow torch. Works like the effervescent Blue/Gold-Untitled 2021 have been shown extensively in Europe, Asia and the US to considerable acclaim.
Chiyoko Tanaka’s Permeated Black-Three Squares * Black and Black Gradation #912 is an example of her intensely rendered textiles. After creating exquisite fabrics on an obi loom, she abrades them with mud, rocks, clay, etc. Portions of the work are deliberately worn away as an actual and metaphorical representation of time. What results are works that have the graphic appeal of a contemporary painting and the tactile sensibility of an artifact.
Mecedes Vicente is based in Spain. Her sculptures are made of canvas strips using an intensely manual process. She loves the elastic, organic, flexible and translucent properties of the fabric with which she works.
We wish you all a full year of art and enjoyment!