Category: Art Textiles

Art Assembled: A Round Up of July’s New This Week

July seemed to fly by here at browngrotta arts, but we still featured a full complement of New Art This Week. This month we had new pieces from Polly Adams Sutton, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Åse Ljones and Lenore Tawney.

Shady Lane by Polly Adams Sutton

2ps Shady Lane, Polly Adams Sutton
western red cedar bark, dyed ash, wire, cane, 16” x 12” x 9”, 2006 
Photo by Tom Grotta

Polly Adams Sutton’s basket Shady Lane is hand woven from pieces of western red cedar bark. With permission from logging operations, Sutton harvests the bark herself in the spring when the sap is running up from the roots of the trees. During her time spent collecting bark in the woods Sutton mulls over possible new forms she can weave. The manipulative qualities of cedar are the cornerstone of Sutton’s work, allowing her to bend the cedar as she desires.

Lucent by Jennifer Falck Linssen

Lucent by Jennifer Falck Linssen
Katagami-style hand-carved archival cotton paper aluminum, waxed linen, mica, paint and varnish
51 x 16 x 6 in, 2017

Through works like Lucent, Jennifer Falck Linssen explores the “delicacy of nature, the beauty of line, and the transformation of light and space.” By investigating both natural and manmade forms Linssen investigates how patterns lead to the overall strength of an objects, such as the veins in a plant or the structure of a moth’s wings. In her work, Linssen uses the ancient Japanese paper carving technique katagami. Katagami allows Linssen to bridge the gap between “human scale, the minute and intimate, and the vast and grand by freezing a moment in time, immortalizing it in pattern, light, and shadow.” Through these frozen moments, Linssen is sees humanity reflected in nature’s change, rebirth, resiliency and endurance.

Sound on the Fjord by Åse Ljones

Sound on the Fjord by Åse Ljones
hand embroidery on linen tapestry
99.5″ x 65.25″, 2014

Åse Ljones’ hand-embroidered tapestry Sound on the Fjord reflects Ljones’ upbringing on a small rural farm, where sea and nature were close by. Ljones starts her embroidery at either the corner or center of a piece of fabric. From there she takes her time sewing, reflecting along the way. Ljones never sews a wrong stitch, believing that a mistake it often what creates a dynamic space.

Tension by Lenore Tanwey

77t Tension, Lenore Tanwey
india ink drawing; number 9; pen and ink drawing
22.5″ 26.5″ x 1.5”, 10/23/64, Tom Grotta

Tension is one in a series of graph paper and pen-and-ink drawings Lenore Tawney started in 1964 inspired by her study of the Jacquard loom. Later in the 1990s Tawney converted some of the pen-and-ink drawings into thread sculptures in a series titled Drawings in Air. Tawney’s geometric explorations predated Sol Lewitt’s celebrated grid drawings, which were first exhibited by Paula Cooper in 1968. Tawney, whose work shaped the course of fiber art during the second half of the 20th century, is also well known for her tapestries, collages and assemblages.


Textiles At Tate Modern in London

These are exciting days at the Tate Modern in London for fans of art textiles. You’ll find fiber works by important artists in several different galleries.

Beyond Craft, in the Boiler House, curated by Ann Coxon features three pioneers, Lenore Tawney, Olga de Amaral and Sheila Hicks, who experimented with different weaving techniques, often looking to historical or indigenous textiles for inspiration. De Amaral and Hicks were particularly inspired by the technical brilliance of Peruvian weavings made before European colonization. The Museum notes that many artists in the 1960s were using weaving and knotting to create innovative hangings and sculptures, integrating traditional craft techniques into fine art practice. “The 1960s saw several high-profile exhibitions of ‘fiber art’: textile techniques used to create unique art objects without a practical function. These three artists were among those who attempted to collapse the hierarchy that sets fine art above craft. While this distinction has not entirely disappeared, in recent years fiber art has become a source of inspiration for a new generation of artists and curators and the artists displayed here are receiving fresh consideration.”

Peruvian by Lenore Tawney
Peruvian by Lenore Tawney, linen double weave , 86″ x 18″, circa 1962-83
Lenore, like many artist of the 1960s, was drew inspiration for her weaving from indigenous Peruvian weavings. Photo credit: Tom Grotta
Lekythos by Lenore Tawney, linen; woven, knotted, 50” x 31-3/4” x 1-3/4”, 1962,
Photo: George Erml

In Magdalena Abakanowicz, also in the Boilerhouse, viewers can explore Abakanowicz’s stitched cloth sculptures inspired by biological systems, organic matter, and regeneration. “Made at a time of political tension between the Soviet Union and Poland, Abakanowicz has said the work ‘could be understood as a cry from behind the Iron Curtain’,” says the Museum notes. (That was the time frame in which Anne and Jacques Baruch brought Abakanowicz’ work to the US, the subject of browngrotta arts’ catalog, Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch Collection.)

Embryology by Magdalena Abakanowicz, burlap, cotton gauze, hemp rope, nylon and sisal, 2009
Photo: Tate Photography

Elsewhere in the Boilerhouse is a work by El Anatsui, who completely transforms the most pedestrian materials into art. By flattening bottle tops and stitching them together into a shimmering metal cloth, he turns familiar disposable objects into something that appears precious and alters them in the viewers’ eyes. Taking a similar approach to the mundane, Sheela Gowda from India has created a room-sized installation made of car bumpers and handwoven human hair, an observation on “the coexistence of ritual and superstition alongside modern urban and economic transformation.”

Ink Splash II by El Anatsui, aluminum and copper, 9.35 ft x 12.24 ft, 2012
Photo: Tate Photography

Want to know more? Visit the Museum’s website to see images and to read New Yarn, Tate, etc. Essay: Textiles and Art by Kirsty Bell: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/new-yarns


Artist in the House: Jane Balsgaard from Denmark

 

Browngrotta arts’ artist Jane Balsgaard recently visited the gallery on her way to the opening of Plunge: explorations from above and below at the New Bedford Art Museum. Balsgaard, a native of Denmark, has been very busy lately. In addition to participating in both Plunge and our 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, Balsgaard has just completed a lofty commission for the Hotel Bretagne located in Hornbaek, Denmark.

Jane Balsgaard working

Jane Balsgaard holding “Deck,” a new piece she made while visiting browngrotta.
Photo by Tom Grotta

For the Hotel Balsgaard was commissioned to create something to adorn a 29.5 ft wall facing the Hotel’s staircase. Gallery Hornbaek owner, Susanne Risom, saw Balsgaard’s work as a solution to the immense design dilemma. Balsgaard’s installation, titled Waterfall, consists of 18 reliefs, one sculpture, and one relief in the ceiling, all made with natural materials.

"Waterfall" by Jane Balsgaard

Looking down Jane Balsgaard’s “Waterfall” at the Hotel Bretagne.

The reliefs, varying in length, stretch down the length of the wall creating a straightforward course for the eye to follow. In a statement for Gallery Hornbaek, which assisted in arranging the commission, Art Historian Johan Zimsen Kristiansen explains that the “in the transition between pins, a number of small harmoniously matched fractures and character, along with transparent dots or bubbles of colored paper, all contribute to creating the falls’ dynamics,” and connect the once problematic space.

"Wilton Boat" by Jane Balsgaard

Jane tediously working on “Wilton Boat.”

During her visit at browngrotta arts in Connecticut, Balsgaard worked on a new piece called Wilton Boat, a 12.5” x 11” x 1.5” sailboat made from glass and natural materials, which she sourced fro her yard in Denmark and ours in Wilton.

You can see Jane Balsgaard’s newest works in in browngrotta arts’ online exhibition Cross-Currents: Art Inspired by Water and at the Plunge exhibition through October 8th and of course, by booking a stay at the Hotel Bretagne.


Art Assembled Featured in May

New this Week in May Red Ferne Jacobs

3fj Interior Passages, Ferne Jacobs, coiled and twined waxed linen thread, 54” x 16” x 4”, 2017, Photo by Tom Grotta

Tapestry and sculptural fiber were on tap in May as browngrotta arts’ New This Week selections. First up, Interior Passages, Ferne Jacob’s remarkable wall sculpture of coiled and twined wax linen, a large and complex work that speaks against the desecration of women around the world. Interior Passages needs no one to tell her who she is or what she is says the artist. “She knows her value, and I expect the world to respect this inner understanding. When it doesn’t, I think it moves toward a destructiveness that can be devastating.”

New this Week in May Helena Hernmarck Tapestry

Helena Hernmarck in front of her tapestry Tabula Rasa 3, 2011, Wool, 37.5″ × 57″, Photo by Carter Grotta

Helena Hernmark’s Tabula Rasa 3 , integrates an unusual background of polyester from sequin making that adds a glimmer to the tapestry in the right light. The work is part of a series that included the first Tabula Rasa, commissioned for Yue-Kong Pao Hall, Purdue University.

New this Week in May Jo Barker Dark Shimmer

Dark Shimmer, Jo Barker , wool, cotton and embroidery threads, 34” x 29.25” x 1.25”, 2017, Photos by Tom Grotta

Dark Shimmer, by Scottish artist Jo Barker, is from the series for which she won the prestigious Cordis tapestry prize in 2016.

New this week in May Complex plaiting by Norie Hatekayama

Complex Plaiting Series Pile 02, Norie Hatekayama , plaited paper fiber strips, 11” x 11” x 10”, 2002, Photo by Tom Grotta

Norie Hatakeyama’s Complex Plaiting Series, Pile 02 is made of paper tape. Hatakeyama’s plaited works reflect the complex structures that make up the universe. “Human beings explore structure in nature and create science and art,” she says. “I’ve observed that the transition of science (mathematics, geometry, etc.) and art overlaps with the direction of my work. I feel deeply that the outside world, the natural world, is a field, made up of matter and energy, repeating regeneration and radiating unremitting energy.”


Plunge: explorations above and below Opening Tonight, New Bedford Art Museum, Massachusetts

Annette Bellamy Long Lines

Annette Bellamy Long Lines

Rippling, roiling, teeming with life… Deep, dark, waiting to be explored…
Water has long been a potent influence for artists wishing to explore its majesty and mystery.

For the last several months, browngrotta arts has worked with Jamie Uretsky, Curator and Noelle Foye, Executive Director of the New Bedford Museum of Art/ArtWorks! in Massachusetts. Plunge: explorations from above and below, which examines the influence of water in the work of 16 artists from around the world, is the result.

New Bedford Plunge installation

Plunge explorations from above and below installation

The multifaceted exhibition combines sculptures, tapestries, installation works, paintings and photography. Each work resides at the intersection of the maker’s fascination with a variety of nautical and natural themes and the artmaking process. Plunge pairs Helena Hernmarck’s monumental woven depiction of tall ships in New York Bay 1884 and Chris Drury’s Double Echo, a print that superimposes a fragment of an echogram from Flight W34 over East Antarctica and an echocardiogram of the pilot’s heartbeat. In other galleries, Heather Hobler’s meditative photographs of seascapes join Karyl Sisson’s “sea creatures” made of domestic objects like zippers and clothespins; Christopher Volpe’s evocative paintings join Grethe Wittrock’s Arctica, a sculpture made from a repurposed sail from the Danish Navy. Unlike most musuem exhibtions, the works in Plunge are all available for sale.

Thirteen of the artists in Plunge, representing five countries, are represented by browngrotta arts: Dona AndersonJane BalsgaardAnnette BellamyMarian BijlengaBirgit BirkjaaerChris DruryHelena HernmarckLawrence LaBiancaSue LawtyJudy MulfordKaryl SissonUlla-Maija VikmanGrethe Wittrock. Their work, and that of the three other artists in the exhibition, Heather Hobler, Anne Leone and Christopher Volpe, will be included in the catalog for the exhibition, designed and photographed by Tom Grotta. It will be available beginning June 5th at www.browngrotta.com.

Plunge’s opening is tonight Friday, June 2nd at the New Bedford Museum of Art from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Jane Balsgaard, one of the artists in Plunge, will attend from Denmark.

The New Bedford Art Museum is great cultural destination for those on the way to the Vineyard, Nantucket or the Cape. You have plenty of time to see it, as the exhibition continues through October 7, 2017. The New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks! is located at: 608 Pleasant Street/ New Bedford, MA/02740/508.961.3072/info@newbedfordart.org.


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.


Art Assembled: Featured in April


April has been a busy month for us at bwongrotta arts. We’ve been celebrating our 30th Anniversary for the past 10 days so one of our new this week items was a short video about our 30th Anniversary exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art.

outdoor bronze sculpture featured new this week April

21dm Timeless Figure, Dawn MacNutt, bronze, 51″, x 21″, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta

We added outdoor sculpture for this exhibition and highlighted Dawn MacNutt’s bronze work, Timeless Figure, which began as a willow sculpture before it was cast in bronze.

boat wall reliefs featured new this week April

34b Small Reliefs, Jane Balsgaard, willow, cotton rope, fishing line, handmade plant paper, plastic wire ties, 36” x 80”, 2015-16. Photo by Tom Grotta

Jane Balsgaard’s small reliefs of willow, cotton rope, fishing line, handmade plant paper and plastic wire ties also featured this month. Balsgaard’s airy “boats” of plant paper will be featured in Plunge: Explorations Above and Below at the New Bedford Art Museum, Massachusetts, that opens Memorial Day weekend, official opening June 2nd: http://newbedfordart.org. We’ve partnered with NBAM to mount Plunge; 13 of browngrotta arts’ artists will be included. We’ll be preparing a catalog for the exhibition which is open through October 8, 2017. This month we also drew attention to

horsehair wall relief featured new this week April

25mb Untitled, Marian Bijlenga, horsehair, cotton, viscose, 15” x 15”, 2012. photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga’s untitled work of horsehair, cotton and viscose. Bijlenga is one of the artists in Still Crazy as is Gyöngy Laky. Her is her work, Lefty Loosey, Righty Tighty a digital print combined with bullets for building.


Artist RSVPs—International Artists Travel the World to Attend browngrotta’s Opening April 22nd

From across the globe to the beautiful rural and coastal landscape of Connecticut, artists traveling from four different countries and nine US states will attend browngrotta arts’ artist reception and opening this Saturday, April 22, 2017.

We are delighted to welcome these 16 national and international artists as we celebrate our 30th anniversary exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art.

Jennifer Falck Linssen

Jennifer Falck Linssen

Wendy Wahl

Wendy Wahl

John McQueen

John McQueen

Blair Tate

Blair Tate

Nancy Koenigsberg

Nancy Koenigsberg

Tamiko Kawata

Tamiko Kawata

Lewis Knauss

Lewis Knauss

Mary Giles

Mary Giles

Mary Merkel-Hess

Mary Merkel-Hess

Norma Minkowitz

Norma Minkowitz

Ferne Jacobs

Ferne Jacobs

Gizella K Warburton

Gizella K Warburton

Hisako Sekijima

Hisako Sekijima

Kyomi Iwata

Kyomi Iwata

Jin-Sook So

Jin-Sook So

Helena Hernmarck

Helena Hernmarck

As with our world-renowned collection of art textiles, dimensional art pieces and mixed media, many of our visiting artists represent acreative blend of diverse cultures and countries from all over the world, including Helena Hernmarck, originally from Sweden, now Connecticut, who continues to work with weavers in Sweden to create her tapestries; Jin-Sook So, from Korea, who has also lived for more than two decades in Sweden; Hisako Sekijima of Yokohama, Japan; and Gizella K Warburton from the UK.

We’re also pleased to welcome the following artists who are traveling from across the United States, including California, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin, and of course our home state of Connecticut:

Each of the 16 artists expected to attend browngrotta arts’ artists reception and opening this Saturday will be available to offer insights into this unique combination of art forms, including textiles, sculptures, stitched work and sculptural baskets among others. Visit our Artists pages to learn more about our visiting artists’ techniques, inspirations and remarkable art forms.
The Artists Reception and Opening for Still Crazy After All These Years…30 Years in art is at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897, April 22nd, 1 pm to 6 pm.


Art Inside and Out: Sculpture featured at browngrotta arts’ 30th Anniversary

For our 30th anniversary exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, browngrotta arts will feature outdoor sculptures by two prominent international artists, Dawn MacNutt and Mariyo Yagi.

Dawn MacNutt Timeless Figure

Dawn MacNutt Timeless Figure. Photo by Tom Grotta

Dawn MacNutt, a native of the Canadian province Nova Scotia, incorporates an assortment of natural materials, such as twined willow, seagrass and copperwire, into each life-size sculpture. By crafting these column-like figures, MacNutt masterfully captures the beauty and frailty of the human form.

Bronze detail

Dawn MacNutt Bronze sculpture detail. Photo by Tom Grotta

Among MacNutt’s masterpieces is, 2000–2005, a series of figures of willow and seagrass, each standing at 5’8” inches high. As with many of her fiber sculptures, MacNutt’s Return to Delos illustrates the humancondition as a source of imperfections and vulnerabilities but also reveals that, through these flaws, humans connect with one another and thereby create a sense of identity. She achieves this sentiment by leaving her columns purposely unfinished so that bare sticks remain untied and left to reach out to the world surrounding them. browngrotta arts’ exhibition features one of MacNutt’s willow figures cast in bronze, a material used by early imperial cultures. The bronze version is nearly indistinguishable from its willow counterpart, but the bronze permits the installation to withstand outdoor weather conditions.

 

Mariyo sculpture

Mariyo Yagi A Cycle – Infinity, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

Mariyo Yagi of Kobe, Japan, uses a combination of rope, bamboo, metal, and even glass to fashion a series of spiraling art installationsthat embody her theory of nawalogy—onenessmade of diversity. Through her art installations, she examines how nawa, the modern Japanese word for “rope,” is not made using one strand but, rather, with a series of strands inthe form of a spiral. Similar to how communication and inter-exchange establisha community, her pieces demonstrate how the energy from spiral structuresimitates the links between heaven and earth, as well as DNA and the universe.  

stick sculpture

John McQueen Skew, stick sculpture, Photo by Tom Grotta

jute sculpture

Naoko Serino Existing- 2-D jute sculpture. Photo by Tom Grotta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


There are also many indoor sculptural works featured in Still Crazy After All These Years, including John McQueen’s stitched twig figure, Askew, and Naoko Serino’s ethereal floating square of jute. Learn more about these and other artists in the browngrotta arts’ 30th anniversary exhibition on our Artists page.


Still Crazy After All These Years Preview: Stitch in Time – Embroidery

Embroidery stitches – deliberate and in flurries – feature prominently in the work of six of the artists in browngrotta arts’ upcoming exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, this April 22nd through April 30th.

Heidrun Schimmel Detail

”Was du Weiß auf Schwarz Besitzt
(text/textile/texture) by Heidrun Schimmel Detail, photo by Tom Grotta

Heidrun Schimmel from Germany creates her artwork, which features blizzards of stitches, entirely by hand. She believes her stitch work demonstrates how thread, through its length and quality, acts as a metaphor for human existence.

Åse Ljones embroidery

Sound of the fjord detail by Åse Ljones, photo by Tom Grotta

Different pattern sequences are incorporated by Åse Ljones of Norway into her art pieces. By doing so, she allows each small change in sequence to create a rhythm, tranquility, or excitement for the viewer to enjoy. “I often work in series,” she says, “and build large works from smaller pieces. The small changes in each work communicate and often strengthen the relation to one another.”

silk drawing by Scott Rothstein

Untitled by Scott Rothstein, photo by Tom Grotta

Scott Rothstein, whose work has been collected by the Metropolitan and the Philadelphia museum of art, blends minimal design and traditional materials to create ambiguous art forms that viewers must experience and interpret on their own. His embroideries feature brilliant colors and repeated stitches to add dimension.

horsehair thread sculpture

Grow – Grid 16.11 by Marian Bijlenga, photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga of the Netherlands has a fascination with dots, lines and contours that is evident in her artwork. She playfully introduces unique contour lines of color and symmetry through her stitched work, using a variety of textile fabrics and materials, including paper, thread and horsehair. Rather than draw on paper, she draws in space using textile as a material and leaves enough distance between the structure and its aligning wall to create what she refers to as a “spatial drawing.”

Adela Akers Small Blue Tapestry

Dark Horizon, 3016 by Adela Akers, photo by Tom Grotta

Delicately combining a series of horsehair, recycled wine foil, and acrylic paint, Adela Akers creates her embroidered pieces by hand with careful insertion of each fine material.“Even when I don’t know the outcome,” she says, “it is the transformation of the materials by the repetitive hand manipulation that leads me to the final expression.”

embroidered sculpture

Growth 2 by Anda Klancic, photo by Tom Grotta

Anda Klancic uses transparency and coloring to address the visual play of perception between the mimetic and the abstract. Her work in this collection, as well as in previous pieces, attempts to express the relationship between humanity and nature.
Slovenian artist Anda Klancic uses a combination of innovative embroidery techniques, many of which are patented under her name, allowing her to meticulously blend metal with cloth cotton or tree bark to fashion abstract pieces that crystallize the aesthesis of nature.

For more information and a complete artist’s list, please visit http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php.