Category: Art Textiles

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Jin-Sook So

April 12, 2012 0 Comment

STEEL MESH UNTITLED, Detail, Jin-Sook So

At SOFA NY,  browngrotta arts will present the work of Korean artist Jin-Sook So who will attend the exposition in New York. Since 1984, So has been using transparent steel mesh cloth, which she burns, paints, electroplates  in gold or silver, sews and shapes to create sculptural and wall pieces. In creating Steel Mesh Untitled, which will be exhibited at SOFA, So was inspired by Korea’s landscape. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Youngeun Museum outside of Seoul for the last year.

46jss Steel Mesh Untitled Jin-Sook So, steel mesh, gold-leafed and painted acrylic, charcoal, ink colors, electroplated, 17.75″€ x 16.5″€ (each), 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

So’s work has been exhibited extensively in the US and abroad, including at the Röhsska Arts and Crafts Museum, Göteborg, Sweden; Nationalmuseum, Osaka, Japan; Skissernas Museum, Lund Sweden; Brooklyn Museum, New York; National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pennsylvania; Kulturhuset, Stockhom, Sweden; Museé d’Angers, France; Kwang-Ju City Museum, Korea; Lane Municipal Gallery, Erfurt, Germany; Savaria Museum, Szombathely, Hungary; Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
 

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Naoko Serino

April 11, 2012 0 Comment

4ns Generating-4 detail, Naoko Serino, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY browngrotta arts will present two dramatic works of jute by Japanese artist Naoko Serino. “Jute is attractive as it is, transient but also solid,” explains Serino. “Transforming jute into a fibrous material, I feel that the possibilities of expression have opened up and been induced, and eventually a three-dimensional expression is born, containing both light and air.” In creating  Generating-3, which will be displayed at SOFA New York, Serino was inspired by a Philodendron selloum bud and flower that she tended for 22 years before it bloomed, for just one day. Serino was taken by its strength and beauty.

4ns Generating-4, Naoko Serino, jute, 39″ x 39″ x 6.5″, 2012, photo by Tom Grotta

Generating-4, a standalone sculpture of jute that is more than three feet high will also be displayed at SOFA NY. “When my inner memory is stimulated,” Serino says, “I turn the fundamental illusion into a ‘shape’ and  I am able to enjoy interacting with shapes far beyond my imagination.” Serino’s’s work was included in the Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers exhibition which traveled from Japan to the Japan Society in New York last year. her work has also appeared in the Museum Rijswijk,  Haag, the Netherlands; Kajima Ki Building, Tokyo, Japan; Church of San Francesco, Como, Italy; Musée des Beaux Arts, Tournai, Belgium;  Gwangju Art Museum,Korea;  Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;  Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Urasoe Museum, Okinawa, Japan;  and St. Amandsberg Chapel, Ghent, Belgium.

 

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Heidrun Schimmel

April 9, 2012 0 Comment

Day and Night Detail by Heidrun Schimmel, photo by Tom Grotta

Day and Night by German artist Heidrun Schimmel is one of the works that browngrotta arts will exhibit at SOFA NY in April. Schimmel is interested in the connection between fiber/fabric/textile and the human being. Mythologically, she notes, thread is connected to human existence. Its length and quality are metaphors for the duration and character of our lives, thus the expression, “…hanging by a thread…” Schimmel takes her ideas from the special characteristics of textiles, such as softness, flexibility, fragility. Her  working process is very simple: she stitches by hand using white cotton thread on transparent black silk or cotton fabrics. From the tensions between the multiple thread layers result deformations: the work itself finds its final form through the combination of control and chance.This focus on “material as matter” results in forms that cannot be projected in advance. Day and Night was specifically influenced by the work of Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto whose work has inspired Schimmel since the 1980s.

29hsc Day and Night Heidrun Schimmel, white cotton thread, black transparent silk fabric, 71″€ x 34″€ x 7″€, 1995/2010, photo by Tom Grotta

Schimmel’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues in Europe Asia and the US, including the Institute of Modern Art, Nuremberg, Germany; Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, England; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pennsylvania; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyongju, Korea; Quinta Isabela Museum, Valencia, Venezuela; Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland; and the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, England.
 
 

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Lija Rage

April 8, 2012 0 Comment

Animal, Lija Rage, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY this April, browngrotta arts will introduce the work of Latvian artist Lija Rage. Rage’s work is influenced by different cultures that she plunges into with the help of literature. Rage says she is  particularly interested in drawings of ancient cultures on the walls of caves in different parts of world; Eastern culture with its mysterious magic, drawings of runes in Scandinavia, Tibet and the mandala, Egyptian pyramid drawings. “World culture,”she says, “seems close and colorful to me due to its diversity.” For Rage’s work Animal, one of two that browngrotta arts will display at SOFA NY, Rage was inspired by prehistoric cave drawings. These drawings illustrate myths, Rage explains, “not only about our past, but about masculine and feminine, about pagans and Christians, about God and good and evil and about the eternal meaning of human existence.” Rage used silk and copper threads in Animal, to illustrate the mystical effect that cave drawings have on her.

Animal, Lija Rage, silk, metallic thread, flax, 46″ x 65″, 2006 photo by Tom Grotta

Rage’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues including the Decorative + Applied Art Museum, Riga, Latvia; Contemporary Art Museum, Liege, Belgium; Cheongju, Korea; Artist Union of Latvia Art Collection, Riga; Art Museum of Oulu, Finland; Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, England; Exhibition Hall Arsenals, State Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia; Beauvais, France; Artist Union Gallery Riga Latvia ; Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tallinn, Estonia; Riga Gallery, Latvia; Kaunas, Lithuania; UNESCO Exhibition Hall, Paris, France.
Rage received the Special Prize in the 5th Cheongju International Craft Biennial and the Grand Prix, at the Baltic Applied Art Triennial.
 

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Norma Minkowitz

April 7, 2012 0 Comment

COMPOUND Detail by Norma Minkowitz, photo by Tom Grotta

 

Norma Minkowitz is one of the 25 artists whose work browngrotta arts will highlight at SOFA NY. Among the works by Minkowitz  that will be displayed is Compound, which illustrates the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Her inspiration for the piece was unexpected, she explains.

45nm Compound, Norma Minkowitz, mixed media, 70″€ x 54.75″€ x 1.5″€, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

“I was already working on a wall piece, starting in a spontaneous, unplanned manner arranging lines and subtle patterns, until I had a feeling of the direction it would take. Suddenly the linear image took on the apparition of an aerial view of Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan that I had recently read about and viewed in a newspaper article. The aerial view of the compound became both a replica of the actual space as well as an imaginary vision that I had.” Minkowitz is a National Endowment of the Arts grant recipient, a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a James Renwick Alliance Master of the Medium. The Alliance describes her as a sculptor, who ” has transformed the traditionally feminine art of crochet into a medium for figurative sculpture. The transparent openness of the crochet allows her to draw in three dimensions to reflect the psychological ideas beneath the surface.” Minkowitz’ work is included in numerous permanaent museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Sue Lawty

April 5, 2012 0 Comment

CALCULUS Detail, Sue Lawty

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will exhibit stone drawings and weavings of lead and linen by UK artist Sue Lawty. Lawty’s constructed pieces and drawings in two and three dimensions explore repetition and interval in raffia, hemp, linen, lead, stone or shadow.

While an artist in residence at the the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2005, Lawty collaborated on a project “Concealed-Discovered-Revealed” with the theme of structure and landscape. Lawty used the opportunity to explore and extend her textile vocabulary by creating a large site-specific stone drawing Order, that moved beyond the constraints of a frame. The 6-meter linear pieced drawing of fine stones wavered along the wall’s surface, like a woven structure. Eventually, Origin was removed to The Haymarket Hotel in London.

15sl CALCULUS, Sue Lawty, natural stones on gesso, 78.75″ x 118″, 2010

At SOFA NY, browngrotta arts will exhibit a more recent stone drawing by Lawty, Calculus. At first glance, Calculus appears simple — like a painting of many dots of many sizes.  On closer inspection, you realize that the 2 meter by 3 meter surface actually contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny stones, each smoothed by the sea and hand sorted to create what Emma Crichton-Miller has called a “beautifully choreographed march past the ignored.” Calculus is the Latin word for small stone as well as the name of a branch of mathematics based, like Lawty’s work, on the sum of infinitesimal differences. Lawty’s work  has appeared in numerous exhibitions in the UK and abroad, including the International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland; the Bankfield Gallery and Museum in Halifax, UK; the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne, Australia and the Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum in Spokane, Washington.  On Friday, April 20th from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Lawty will present a lecture at SOFA NY, Rock – Linen – Lead,  about her work and her engagement with remote landscape, geology and the passage of time.

 

 

 

 

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Luba Krejci

April 2, 2012 0 Comment

Luba Krejci Thread Drawing, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will present two thread drawings from the 1970s by Czechoslovokian artist Luba Krejci (1925-2005).

Krejci was an extremely diversified artist who made lace, embroidered and printed textiles, created tapestries, straw figures, wickerwork and children’s clothing. She made handbags and hats and exhibited extensively in Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan, Russia, Argentina and New Zealand.

THREAD DRAWING, Luba Krejci, 18.5″ x 18, photo by Tom Grotta

Her most significant contribution to field of textile history, however, was her adaptation of the traditional needle and bobbin lace, to create a technique that she called nitak or “little threaded one,” which enabled her to draw with thread,  She generally created her pieces in black linen thread but white, red and light brown examples also exist. At SOFA, browngrotta arts will have examples of works in black and brown.

Krejci’s work is in numerous public collections, including those ofThe Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, Czechoslovakia; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, theNetherlands; Museum Bellerive, Lausanne, Switzerland; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Museum of Applied Arts, Brno, Czechoslovakia and the Czech
Ministry of Culture, Prague, Czechoslovakia.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Anda Klancic

March 31, 2012 0 Comment

Anda Klancic, Black Grove detail, photo by Tom Grotta

Cerni Goj means the black grove in the ancient Slovenian language, but it is also a surname in Slovenia, the name of the late Slovenian painter and graphic artist, August Cernigoj. At SOFA NY 2012 , browngrotta arts will exhibit Anda Klancic’s work, The Black Grove. The work involved several techniques and manipulations, took 13 years to complete and explores the themes of global linkage and the interaction of humans and nature.
Klancic’s  first stimulus for The Black Grove was the structure of the vein-like net of the dried fruit from the plant echynocystis lobata, a wild pumpkin. Inspired by this natural structure, Klancic designed a pattern for industrial machine-embroidered lace and machine-embroidered fabric. From a piece of this embroidered fabric, produced from selected raw materials especially for this hand-manipulated experiment, she produced The Black Grove, using numerous hand-applied techniques.
Klancic’s work has garnered international acclaim. Her three-dimensional lace work, Foothpaths 2, was commended by the judges at last year’s International Triennial of Tapestry in Poland. Her lighted works Aura and Aura F&M, were presented at the Miniartextil Energheia touring exhibition that opened in Milan, Italy. Aura which is made of palm tree bark, optical fibre,  and includes three halogen light sources, is currently in Zagreb, Croatia in the Textil{e}tronic exhibition.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Susie Gillespie

March 30, 2012 0 Comment

SETTLEMENT detail by Susie Gillespie, photo by Tom Grotta

Susie Gillespie’s weavings contain many influences besides those of ancient textiles that have survived the millennia. The artist writes that she finds “beauty in the ruins of what once must have been new: the patterns in damp and crumbling plaster; the remains of paint on decayed wood; rotting bark; broken carvings; fallen monoliths. Some of these I express in broken borders, insets and slits; twining and wrapping; weaves of herringbone and twill; mends, darns, fraying; drawn threads and slits.” She seeks to reinvent the past to some extent, “Despite my weaving having roots in the past, I look forward to a future where we do not discard things because they are worn out or outmoded. Out of decay and disintegration I wish to express a sense of renewal.”

Settlement by Susie Gillespie, antique handspun linen & Nepalese nettle yarn, modern linen, cotton, natural pigments from caves. gesso, hand-made paper, 45.5″ x 48″ x 1″, 2010, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will exhibit Gillespie’s 2012 work, Settlement, in which the artist has combined antique handspun linen yarn, handspun Nepalese nettle yarn, modern linen, cotton, natural pigments from caves, gesso and handmade paper to create a contemporary haptic artifact. Gillespie’s work has been exhibited at the Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, UK; Somerset House, London, UK (Origin); Torre Abbey, Torquay, UK; Brewery Arts Centre. She is a recipient of the Theo Moorman Trust Weaving Award.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Lia Cook

March 27, 2012 0 Comment

Neural Networks Detail by Lia Cook, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts‘ display will include Neural Networks by Lia Cook. Cook works in a variety of media, combining weaving with painting, photography, video and digital technology. Cook’s current practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and the emotional connections to memories of touch and cloth. Working in collaboration with neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine,

23lc Neural Networks, Lia Cook, woven cotton and rayon, 83″ x 51″ x 1.5″, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

Cook has investigated the nature of the emotional response to woven faces by mapping in the brain these responses and using the laboratory experience both with process and tools to stimulate her work in reaction to these investigations. Her solo exhibition, Bridge 11: Lia Cook, which includes large-scale woven images of human faces and introduces several works based on her recent art-neuroscience collaboration, is at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 13th. Cook is one of 11 artists whose work is highlighted in the current exhibition, Sourcing the Museum, at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC through August 19th and one of 14 artists featured in Sleight of Hand at the Denver Art Museum through May 13th.