Artist Focus: Rachel Max

April 13, 2022 0 Comment
Rachel Max portrait
Rachel Max in her studio, Photo by Tom Grotta

Rachel Max’s interest in basketry grew out of experiments with the tactile and the textile properties of metals. The UK artist’s work will be included in browngrotta arts’ upcoming exhibition Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textile and mixed media art.  A background in metal work that informs her work, while the materials and techniques used in basketry enable her to create a “fabric” with which to shape sculptural forms. The fabric is a delicate grid structure forming an intricate network of lines that are interlinked. Her pieces are often inspired by natural shapes. The unique shapes that result are endlessly engaging — each takes on a different appearance when viewed from varying vantage points.

The weave creates the foundation of all Max’s work. “I have developed a technique of layering to form structures that explore the relationship between lines and shadows and space,” she explains. The relationships between containment and concealment and movement and space are the constant rudiments in her works. “The materials used may vary; however, I have a particular penchant for fine cane, which has a delicacy that is pliable, with wire-like characteristics that suit the open weave compositions that I have been exploring. The contrast of very regular patterns with looser weaves is a recurring theme.” This weave has become her vocabulary, “a way of drawing in space that enables me to explore patterns and form through the interplay of lines, or light and shadow through density and color.”

Rachel Max wall basket
6rm Tonal Fifths, Rachel Max, dyed cane, plaited and twined, 25″ x 21″ x 7.5″, 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

Music is a large part of Max’s life and an important artistic influence. She has been exploring the ways in which musical terms, structure and composition can be translated into woven form. Both Endless and Tonal Fifths use, as a starting point, the fugue, a musical composition based upon one, two or more themes, which are gradually built up and intricately interwoven into a complex imitative form. “Elements of weaving are comparable to notes in music, a measure of time, a beat or a pulse. Rhythm is everywhere, in the movement of my hands as I weave, in the tension and spaces between each stitch, in the beat of our hearts and in the pace of our footsteps,” says Max.

Rachel Max, blue basket
8rm Continuum, Rachel Max, dyed cane, plaited and twined, 15.5″x 17″ x 17″, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta

Color, the final stage in Max’s work, does not appear as an afterthought, but as an integral element. Color is “a necessary ingredient that unifies the process; it is paramount in my work,” she says. Works like Continuum explore the temporal and spatial elements associated with color. The color blue Max describes, for example, as an “ambiguous” color — cold yet often warm and comforting. “It is a color of depth and distance,” in Max’s view,  “of darkness and light and of dawn and dusk. It is a color linked closely to the sky and sea, both of which seem infinite and finite. Blue is paradoxically continuous, yet like the sky and sea, has a beginning and an end. Our lives, too, are structured around the continuous cycle of beginning and end. Our perception of color constantly shifts as the light changes. My aim was to translate these seemingly abstract ideas into something concrete. Continuum is a piece about such contrasts and opposites. It is both infinite and finite. A Mobius strip forms the inner core of the piece and the structure gradually shifts, forming a piece with two very different aspects.”

Rachel Max, Red basket
12rm Balance, Rachel Max, plaited and twined cane, 12″ x 16″ x 9″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Max was eager to participate in Crowdsourcing. “The way in which we are all currently living is one of the biggest adjustments I have ever had to make and one none of us could ever have imagined,” she wrote. “I would like to make something in response to the situation. At the moment it all feels uncontrollable, weighty and fragile. But the words ‘ together and apart’ keep coming to mind and I remember writing them down back in March. There is a huge sense of solidarity and compassion. We’re looking out for each other, we’re closer than we ever were but we cannot touch, hug or meet up. Our spatial awareness and of sense touch has become heightened as the air between us and the surfaces we touch have become dangerous. I would like to make piece which reflects this.” The result is Balance, which explores notions of infinity and time. “My aim was to distort the form, but still create something that is both finite and infinite. It’s rare that the title of a piece comes to me during the making process but as I was weaving this I became aware of its changing weight and stability, forcing me to rethink how I originally intended it to be seen. It became a subconscious reflection on the world we are in now: Everything seems to be in the balance.”

See Max’s work at Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textile and mixed media art (browngrotta arts, May 7 -15, 2021). https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crowdsourcing-the-collective-a-survey-of-textiles-and-mixed-media-art-tickets-292520014237

browngrotta arts and associated artists get good press

April 6, 2022 0 Comment

browngrotta arts and the artists we work with have been in the news lately — quite a bit in fact!

• In January, Simone Pheulpin’s remarkable career was the cover story in Crafts magazine from the UK. The work of Crafts “cover star” defies expectations. Her “ambiguous textile forms recall geological strata and the rings of a tree,” the magazine notes and “evoke the passage of time.” (Cynthia Rose, “Life Lines,” Crafts magazine, January 2022.)

• Karyl Sisson’s work graced the cover of the National Basketry Organization’s basketry+ in its Fall 2021/Winter 2022 issue. The article, “Karyl Sisson: From Nostalgic to Unexpected,” by Janet Mendelsohn, talks about Sisson’s Shapeshifters, a new series of vessels, which will be featured in browngrotta arts upcoming exhibition Crowdsourcing the Collective (May 7 – 15). The works are created of tightly quilled paper straws, laced like beads, threaded in circles, row by row to create cylinders that are manipulated to create lively sculptures. “I see my work as the expression of hidden energy and forces inside all of us,” the magazine quotes the Sisson. “The structures I create are diagrams of physical forces and laws that govern all growth and patterning.”

• A recent issue of the German publication of Art Aurea, profiles Yasuhisa Kohyama in its World Arts section. The magazine quotes Kohyama and it also quotes a German gallery owner, Marcus Müller, on the special tension Kohyama creates between the rough and smooth surfaces in his work and the unique colors of his work, created by the ash in his anagama kiln.
  • The Bay Area Artists’ Legacy Project has published its second volume, The Seventies, with a foreword by Maria Porges. One of the artists included is Lia Cook.
  • Maria Rosaria Roseo interviewed Carolina Yrarrázaval for a recent issue of Arte Morbida. “[Yrarrázaval’s] tapestries,” Roseo writes, “in which dark chromatic shades predominate with red and orange overlaps, together with the essential elegance of vegetable fibers such as jute, silk, cotton, hemp and linen, are the result of continuous research about the weaving techniques of ancient cultures such as pre-Columbian and Japanese which the artist draws inspiration from, creating textile abstractions with a refined, sober and rigorous aesthetic.” (https://www.artemorbida.com/interview-with-carolina-yrarrazaval/?lang=en).
  • HANDWERKEN, zonder grenzen (Crafting without limits) (https://www-handwerkenzondergrenzen-nl.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc) in the Netherlands featured a profile of Aleksandra Stoyanov in a recent issue. “Her work often contains images of the life she left behind in Ukraine [before emigrating to Israel] and has an emotional character that focuses on the social dilemmas of immigrants experiencing the loss of family and disconnecting their connection,” writes Alie Dijk. “She also incorporates family photos in her work, as in From the First Person. In Silence, she creates a space for personal memories.”
  • In “Wonder Wall,”by June Hill, Embroidery magazine profiled Dutch artist Marian Bijlenga last year. Rather than drawing on paper, the author points out, Bijlenga draws in three dimensions, “creating a series of rhythmic, visual relationships between form, pattern and mark.”
  • Finally, 068 (formerly Wilton Magazine) touted browngrotta arts’ Spring 2022 exhibition in its March/April Issue (“Uncovering a Hidden Gem”). Author Julia Bruce says browngrotta arts is “a unique, international showcase for contemporary fiber arts.” The magazine further notes that fiber artists tend to be women, and that browngrotta arts is committed to promoting, exhibiting and documenting their work.

We’re all pleased to be noticed!

Art Assembled: New This Week in March

March 30, 2022 0 Comment

As the spring season kicks off, our bright, blooming artists continue to amaze us with their contemporary and innovative pieces that continue to push the envelope within the art community. Throughout the month of March, we introduced you to pieces from Lija Rage, Paul Furneaux, Mary Giles, James Bassler and so many other talented artists. Read on for a closer look at the work from these artists!

Lija Rage’s Beginning, 2019, Bamboo, copper wire, fabric, 46 1/4 × 39 1/2 × 1 1/4 in, 117.5 × 100.3 × 3.2 cm. Photos by Tom Grotta.

This lively piece, Beginning, was created by Latvian artist, Lija Rage. Rage has said that she often finds inspiration from her homeland – drawing vibrant colors and attributes from the rich and diverse elements in Latvian nature and infusing them into her art.

In addition to the bright themes that can be found throughout Rage’s pieces, her artwork is also often created with bamboo and copper wire elements.

Paul Furneaux, 7pf Garden Shadows: City Shadows Mokuhanga (Japanese woodcut print ), gesso, rice paste and pva archival glue, solid tulip wood 20.5” x 55” x 4”, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Scottish artist, Paul Furneaux, consistently impresses us with his inspired use of traditional printing techniques within his art. Furneaux has been perfecting his use of traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques for over the past decade, and his expertise shows clearly throughout his work.

When asked about his printing technique of choice, Furneaux said: “This inherently beautiful and simple process has allowed my work to develop in a contemplative and semi-abstract way.”

Silver Figure, Mary Giles, 24″ x 4.5″, 1999. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This innovative piece comes from the late Mary Giles, an American artist who was and is near and dear to our hearts at browngrotta arts. Throughout her career, Giles created dynamic artwork that ranged from mixed-media coiled baskets that are sculptural in nature, totems and three-dimensional wall works.

Her work is known for its tactile qualities and the reflective and malleable materials that it’s composed of. 

Before her death in 2018, the wall panels she created were inspired by her growing concerns about our population and problems that plague the word. 

6jb Pre-Columbian Meets Mid-Century Modern, James Bassler, single-ply linen,
synthetic dyes; four-selvage construction; 55” x 56” , 2006. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This artwork was created by James Bassler, a renowned American fiber artist based out of California. Bassler has built his career around the art and craft of weaving. He is well known around for his use of ancient pre-Columbian techniques and materials, which he uses to create traditional works with contemporary themes.  

Bassler has spent a lifetime investigating Peruvian and cube weaving and other techniques and materials like nettle and cochuyi. In some of his works, though, politics takes center stage.

We have so many exciting things (art and exhibitions alike) in store as the spring months unfold, so keep your eyes peeled for all that awaits! We will also be introducing our followers to new art every Monday, so follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on all the new art we’re bringing to the table.

Art + Science + Textile

March 23, 2022 0 Comment

We are big supporters of STEAM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics — education initiatives. STEAM adds the soft skills of the Arts to the harder Scientific, Technological, Engineering or Mathematical STEM studies to enhance critical and innovative thinking. As an example, STEAM encourages collaboration to understand STEM concepts. STEAM uses tools such as data visualization or fine art imagery to deepen one’s understanding of science, math and technology. This kind of out-of-the-box thinking is what leads STEAM professionals to create new products using 3D printers or distill complicated data sets into easy-to-understand formats, such as infographics. 

Hannah Skye Dunnigan, NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing Idea Challenge interview

Projects that result from this collaborative approach can be exciting and out of the box — and some of them involve textile concepts. In an unconventional partnership, a team of undergraduates in design and engineering from Brown and RISD won Most Creative Concept in 2021 at NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing Idea Challenge. The team was given $90,000 to create a solution for moon dust. Their solution to control moon dust, which creates significant problems for astronauts and their equipment, involved bundles of fibers, inspired by chinchilla fur, that carry a static charge. Dust that’s not repelled by the charge is caught in the fibers. The design and prototyping lead of the project was Hannah Skye Dunnigan, daughter of bga artist Wendy Wahl and furniture designer John Dunnigan. As a designer, Dunnigan told The Brown Daily Herald,  she was very proud that the team showed that “designers can be in the space as well, not just engineers.” (“Brown, RISD team wins ‘Most Creative Concept’ at NASA Challenge Forum,” The Brown Daily Herald, November 22, 2021). The Brown-RISD connection is potent, Christopher Bull, a senior lecturer in engineering and principal investigator of the project, told the Herald, because it “gets diverse people in the same room trying to solve the problem.” (Here is a Youtube link of their presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQnJnzSlxBo.) 

27lc Data Dots Emotional Intensity cotton, rayon, woven 78” x 50,” 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

Lia Cook of California, has spent years in STEAM experimentation of her own, exploring the intersections of art, technology and science in her artwork. She is one of the artists in Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Fiber at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, a celebration of interdisciplinary creativity and collaborative learning. As the Museum explains, Radical Fiber provides the work as at once fine art, process-driven craft, and scientific tool, complicating existing frameworks across fields. It asks questions: “Can a crochet hook and yarn uniquely explain the complexities of non-Euclidean geometry? How does the 1804 Jacquard loom relate to modern computing?” The exhibition reframes the histories of fiber/science intersections, asking not only how artists continue to engage in scientific inquiry through fiber, but also, how the medium can be used to improve our world for the future. Among the questions to be asked is one Cook has been exploring for some time: How do viewers’ reactions vary when they look at a photograph versus her Jacquard weavings of a photo image  During the Radical Fiber exhibition, a study will be conducted by the Skidmore’s Psychology Department in the neuroscience lab comparing behavioral responses to a series of woven faces by Lia Cook with with the identical photo of the same image. The subjects will be shown 10 digitized photos of the black-and-white photographs of faces and 10 digitized photos of the black-and-white, cotton-and-rayon, woven tapestries translated from the photos and asked to rate the intensity of the facial expression depicted in the image, from 1 (not at all intense) to 7 (extremely intense).

Cook has conducted her own studies of viewers’ responses. To create Data Dots Emotional Intensity, Cook conducted an informal survey of viewers of a large childhood photo of herself and a weaving of the same image. She translated the data she collected into dots and superimposed them on a woven portrait — blue for people who felt no difference between the two; yellow for those more affected by the photo and red for those who found the woven image more emotionally affecting. The woven image won. Red dots predominate, an observable amalgam of art and science.  “A visual pun is at hand,” writes Deborah Valoma of Lia Cook’s work.“[D]igital technology is juxtaposed to digital senses, a reminder that no matter how technologically sophisticated the process, weaving is still a medium of touch and embodied thought….,” Deborah Valoma, “Lia Cook: Seeing Touch,” Lia Cook: In the Folds — Works from 1973-1997 (2007, browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT).

10-11fl White Shell Tongue no.1-2, Federica Luzzi, fine art print on “baritata” paper, 66.875” x 24.75” x 1.25”; 78.625” x 32.75” x 1.25”, 2006

Italian textile sculptor, Federica Luzzi has created works born of conversations with researchers at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy on concepts of dark matter, antimatter, nuclear, subnuclear physics, and an accelerator of particles. Various images of each side of three white sculptures are depicted; “gesture and matter are the terms of a relationship still waiting to be deciphered,” Luzzi explains. Working in the opposite direction of the classic and traditional concept of sculpture as a “way of removing,” the textile medium allows Luzzi to work around a void. Each sculpture, while having a mathematical initial scheme, is ultimately rendered with an element of mistake. “The final unexpected effect I interpret as an ideogram, a gesture, that presents itself as the work unfolds,” she says. “The White Shell Tongue prints suggest a primordial voice, speaking in a language now unknown to us but original, a pure, reductive writing externality, with wrappings and emptied shells.” 

9gs Out of Focus 1-9, Grethe Sørensen, handwoven cotton, 87″ x 85.5″ x 1.5″, 2007

In Denmark, Grethe Sørensen has unpacked digital technologies to create her tapestries. She has developed her own technique, combining weaving and video, selecting and manipulating still images to create a poetic universe of pixels, headlights, traffic lights, neon shop and advertising signs meticulously rendered in cotton thread. She is fascinated by color gradation; dying on the warp before weaving, varying the colors by mixing threads of different nuances in the warp. For Out of Focus 1-9, the artist created an image of hard-edged pixels in basic colors blown up until they appeared “liquid.” Pixels in basic colors are the starting point for her woven constructions. 

Another California artist, Sarah Rosalena Brady,  draws on her multiracial background as Huichol and Laguna Pueblo,  focusing her research on Indigenous scholarship and mentorship in STEAM. She describes her work as deconstructing technology with material interventions, creating new narratives for hybrid objects that speak on issues such as AI, aerospace technologies, and decolonial posthumanism. Her hybrid works operate between human/nonhuman, ancient/future, and handmade/autonomous principles to override power structures rooted in colonialism. Her solo exhibition at Blum & Poe, LA in 2021, https://contemporaryartreview.la/sarah-rosalena-brady-at-blum-and-poe/ featured AI-generated double-sided tapestries depicting satellite images of ice on Mars. 

Brady is Assistant Professor of Computational Craft and Haptic Media in the Department of Art at UC Santa Barbara. UCSB’s is just one of the labs and departments around the US exploring the links between art and science. Another is the recently opened International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins Univeristy in Maryland, which studies neuroaesthetics, the scientific study of how the brain responds to the arts and aesthetic experiences, and undertakes this study for the purpose of improving biological, psychological, social/cultural or spiritual outcomes for individuals or populations. “We’re on a mission to amplify human potential,” the Lab declares on its website. The Los Angeles County Museum hosts the LACMA Art + Technology Lab which supports experiments in design, creative entrepreneurship, adventures in art and industry, collaboration, and interdisciplinary dialogue. Another nonprofit endeavor, the SciArt Initiative,  encourages the connectivity and cross-disciplinary approaches needed for the 21st century. The organization notes that artists and scientists seek answers to the same fundamental questions: who are we, why are we here, and where are we going? Both art and science build models of human experience in order to extend the boundaries of human capacity. Despite this common ground, artists and scientists are too often separate in their endeavors. Through exhibitions and micro-grants, the Initiative aims to create more scientific and artistic exchange. 

Exploration into the merger of art and technology, science and craft, is in its early days — watch for more experiments and innovative works.

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

March 16, 2022 0 Comment
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)

New Viewing Room: Art With an Edge – the case for frames

March 9, 2022 0 Comment
68-69bb Mini Basket Symphony in Black & White, Birgit Birkkjær ashes, glued, horsehair/cotton yarn, linen, paper yarn, polyamide, viscose, 19.25″ x 19.25″ x 2” each, 2019. Gessoed Poplar floater frames. Photo by Tom Grotta

Contemporary textile works are often installed effectively right on the wall. Dimensional textiles in particular rarely need an edge. Yet, there are some works that can manage the counterpoint of an artful frame. There are works given more emhasis by the addition of a shadow box or an edge. A frame can also protect a textile from touching and from dust and, with UV glass, even from sunlight to some degree. In our current Viewing Room, Art With an Edge: the case for framing, we are sharing a number of works that feature frames.

Mary Luke of browngrotta arts planning Maple for multiple frames

Many artists are content to let galleries or museums or collectors handle frames. Other artists are intentional about frames, often going so far as making frames themselves. Members of the Ashcan School (late 19th-early 20th century) wanted frames that reflected “the raw, unsentimental spirit of their work, not that of an Old-World cathedral,” notes Eleanor Cummins. (Is It Time to Recognize Frames as an Independent Art Form?, Smithsonian Magazine, June 29, 2020). Georgia O’Keeffe wanted viewers to consider the way the shapes, colors, line and composition worked, without distractions, explains Dale Kronkright, head of conservation at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. To ensure her vision was realized, O’Keeffe worked with Of, the New York City frame maker, to develop eight distinct frames that precisely suited her paintings. Scott Rothstein, whose works are available at browngrotta arts, says he thinks of the frame as a part of the work itself. “The black matte and the frame tightly control how the work is seen,” he says, “which is something I have done with intent. My work can’t be seen any other way.”

Scott Rothstein
25sr #47, Scott Rothstein, hand stiched silk thread on silk ground, in black wood frame with denglass, 13″ x 25″ , 1993. Photo by Tom Grotta

An unabashed fan of frames, Matthew Jones, managing director of the framers and conservationists firm, John Jones London argues that, it’s really about harmony. “A good frame can completely change a work. I very much want the outcome of the project to offer what I call ‘the three wows’. When you first see a work that’s been framed, you should be drawn immediately to the image itself. We then like the eye to cast out to the frame, and — finally — to make a connection with the object in its entirety. If you’ve got a slight imperfection on the frame, or a slight imbalance in colour, it’s going to distract you from your enjoyment of the image.” (“How to choose the right frame for your picture,” Christie’s online, https://www.christies.com/features/How-to-choose-the-right-frame-for-your-picture-10005-1.aspx).

Barnscape by Susie Gillespie, hand spun and machine-spun linen yarn, cotton, nettle, raffia, gesso, earth pigments, 27.5″ x 27.5″ x 1″, 2011. White-washed maple frame with museum glass. Photo by Tom Grotta

At browngrotta arts, we rely on the expertise of Mary Luke https://www.maryluke.com, our Gallery Associate. Luke is a painter, stylist and designer — but also an experienced framer. “Artwork that would otherwise be lost on a wall can be given a strong, powerful voice with a simple mat and frame.” Material and color offer options, Luke says. “Material and color can be used to contrast or blend with the artwork — either way, though, the artwork should always remain the focal point.”

More Framed work from the exhibition

Check out more of Mary Luke’s Framing Q&A in the Art With an Edge Viewing Room. You’ll find 50+ works of art with various frames — shadow boxes, natural edges, perspex, plexiboxes, frames with mats — illustrating their possibility and potential.

“Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.” G.K. Chesterton

Art Assembled: New This Week in February

March 3, 2022 0 Comment

February has been a busy month at browngrotta arts, as we move quickly into 2022, we have been hard at work planning our spring exhibition and introducing you all to the talented artists we have the opportunity to work with. Most recently, we’ve introduced our followers to works by: Jiro Yonezawa, Keiji Nio, Masako Yoshida, and Jo Barker. All uniquely different and exceptionally talented – it’s worth a recap to ensure you all see these impressive works.

Jiro Yonezawa
100jy Red Fossil 20-4, Jiro Yonezawa, bamboo, urushi lacquer,
22.5″ x 21.25″ x 21″, 2020. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This one of a kind piece, Red Fossil, comes from acclaimed Japanese artist, Jiro Yonezawa. Yonezawa’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally on a large scale, and he was also featured in our Japandi exhibition. Yonezawa is widely known for his mastery of bamboo basketry created from traditional techniques; with each artwork he creates, there is often a contrast of disciplined formality in technique and natural freedom in form. 

He has said that his recent baskets “represent a search for the beauty and precision in nature and a way to balance the chaos evident in these times.” 

Keiji Nio
Keiji Nio, 27kn Flowers, braided polyester 30” x 30” x 3”, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Flowers is one of our favorite pieces from Keiji Nio. If you don’t know by now, Keiji Nio is a Japanese artist, who is commonly known for impeccable plaiting and textile works. Nio’s work is done through the traditional technique of Kumihimo, a Japanese form of braid-making.

In this particular piece, Nio said he drew inspiration from flowers he observed online amid the pandemic: “The picture of the flower used for this work was taken when I was looking for the flower that emphasized red, yellow and green in the botanical garden,” said Keiji Nio. “Now that I can’t go out freely, I made a work using these flowers as materials so that I can feel the vivid color and fragrance of these flowers which we’ll experience again in the world after COVID is cured.” 

Masako Yoshida
13my #890 Bark Man, Masako Yoshida, walnut and flax, 13.5″ x 8″ x 4.75″, 2018.
Photo by Tom Grotta.

Another gifted artist we highlighted throughout February was Masako Yoshida. Yoshida is a Japanese artist who has committed much of her career to also teaching her techniques, which have resulted in work being exhibited worldwide.

Often, the constructions Yoshida envisions are built by interlacing sheets of walnut bark with string made of nettle. She has said that her work often provides her a means of release, allowing the truth to emerge and open the mind.

Jo Barker
Jo Barker 13jb cc, woven on cotton warp using wool, cotton,
linen, silk and embroidery threads 15” x 33.5”, 2010. Photo

Jo Barker is British textile artist who has been long known for her complex designs and woven tapestries that are based upon a long-term interest in color. This contemporary abstract tapestry, Cobalt Haze, is no exception.

When explaining her inspirations, Barker said: “My current work is a part of an ongoing series of tapestries exploring themes initially inspired by qualities and patterns of light: transient and ephemeral starting points translated slowly into woven form. I am interested in the contradiction of the contrast in materials between the flowing nature of ink and paint and the illusion of fluidity translated into soft, richly colored yarns.

We hope you all enjoyed this recap and opportunity to learn more about the artists we work with. Follow along throughout March to see more new artwork at browngrotta arts!

Artist Focus: Hideho Tanaka

February 16, 2022 0 Comment
Hideho Tanaka portrait
Hideho Tanaka at the opening of Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers in New York, 2011. Photo by Tom Grotta

Japanese artist Hideho Tanaka, now in his 80s, explores contradictory elements in his work, using time, which he sees as an agent of change, as one guide to his aesthetic choices.

Tanaka studied industrial art and design at the Musashino Art University, in Tokyo. Beginning in 1972, Tanaka taught art, while participating in solo and group exhibitions As a teacher, Tanaka explained, he worked to nurture younger generations, as artists, to think not only of soft cloth, but also less-used materials such as wood, paper pulp and stainless steel thread.

Vanishing and Emerging Rocks
22ht Vanishing & Emerging P32-A, Hideho Tanaka, paper and burnt steel wire, 8″ x 11.5″ x 10″, 1995; 23ht Vanishing & Emerging P32-B, Hideho Tanaka, paper and burnt steel wire, 8″ x 11″ x 11″, 1995; 25ht Vanishing & Emerging P32-D, Hideho Tanaka, paper and burnt steel wire, 8″ x 8.5″ x 7.5″, 1995; 26ht Vanishing & Emerging P32-E, Hideho Tanaka, paper and burnt steel wire, 8″ x 8″ x 8.25″, 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

In the 1980s, Tanaka expanded the scale of his activities and began large-scale outdoor performances and installations in which he covered dunes with cloth which he burned. In subsequent years, under the theme of Vanishing & Emerging (disappearance and transformation), he continued these explorations — burning metal fibers and other aspects of his works. “He uses fire to suggest destructive force or benign transformation .… He often creates simple solids, opposing the specificity of the materials to the generality of the forms and burning holes in the cloth or singeing the edges of the solids to invade their geometric austerity.” Janet Koplos, Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (Abbeville Press, New York, NY, 1991).

Vanishing and Emerging Wall detail
16ht Vanishing and Emerging Wall, Hideho Tanaka, paper, 87” x 102” x 11”, 2009. Photo by Tom Grotta

Tanaka also expanded his art practice in the 80’s to include the creation of art textiles using paper — Tanaka also expanded his art practice in the 80’s to textiles using paper — creating dynamic works by virtue of the material used in the works and their sense of scale. The artist explained his interest in fiber in the catalog for Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers (Japan Society, New York, distributed Yale University Press 2011) an exhibition that travelled internationally in Europe, the US and Europe. “Why did I start thinking about fiber art as a medium? It was partly because I was attracted to the idea of expressing myself in a subtle yet intractable material, but I was also intrigued by the challenge of turning something accidental into a deliberate work of art,” he said. “I’m acutely aware of accidents that actually help me achieve the expression I was striving for and other accidents that take my work in a completely different direction.”

The sculptural sense of Tanaka’s art is exciting — the works are light and yet have enormous presence. In his smaller objects, several layers of thin wire have been loosely bound, sometimes with piles of light-colored fibers, sometimes coated with paper pulp. He creates a contrast between the stiff wire and the short pieces of malleable fiber, the uniform wire and pulp in freeform. The large elliptical wall hanging, Vanishing and Emerging, wall (2009), takes a different approach. “Intricately crafted from ink-lined squares of paper, it is a kind of ode to the natural weight, thickness and movement of the cotton, flax and paper fibers from which the panels are made, emphasizing the material’s natural flow so that the piece seems to have a life of its own. The result is a subtle trick of the eye: The textile is at once rippled and featherlight yet geometrically robust with parallel and perpendicular lines that appear to be woven together like a dense and tidy network of veins in a leaf,” wrote Alexandra Zagalsky, “Hideho Tanaka Carefully Stitched Together Pieces to Make this Sculptural Textile,” Introspective Magazine, September 22, 2021.

Emerging Wall Collage
29, 31ht Emerging, Hideho Tanaka, japanese carbon ink drawing, inkjet print, collage (cotton cloth which put a Japanese tissue paper.), 14.5” x 18.25” x 1”, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

Tanaka’s work “deals with both philosophical and metaphysical ideas, and he often endeavors to connect the realm of the physical world with unseen spiritual planes. He attempts to bridge this gap through forms that suggest the frailty and transience of the human experience,” writes the Minneapolis of Art which has acquired his work. “The medium of fiber is versatile and allows Tanaka creative freedom.” His work seamlessly spans the categories of fiber art and sculpture. 

Cross-country Exhibition News: New Mexico, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut

February 9, 2022 0 Comment

Work by a number of artists who work with browngrotta arts is on display in museum exhibitions across the country. From West to East:

New Mexico

Indelible Blue: Indigo Across the Globe
Albuquerque Museum
through April 24, 2022
abqmuseum@cabq.gov

James Bassler and Rowland Ricketts

We were delighted to loan several works to the Albuquerque Museum’s for Indelible Blue: Indigo Across the Globe, an expansive survey of the origins and history, techniques and movement of indigo, tracing back more than 6,000 years across cultures in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. The exhibition includes clothing and works of art by Eduardo Portillo and Mariá Dávila (VE), Hiroyuki Shindo (JP), Chiyoko Tanaka (JP), James Bassler (US), Chang Yeonsoon (KR) and Rowland Ricketts.

Minnesota

Parallel Lines: New Textile Masterworks Inspired by Geometry
Minneapolis Museum of Art
Minneapolis, MN
through August 28, 2022
https://new.artsmia.org/exhibition/parallel-lines-new-textile-masterworks-inspired-by-geometry

Adela Akers Compostela
Adela Akers, Compostela, 1986, Photos by Adela Akers

Parallel Lines explores woven textiles, which are inherently geometric. Vertical warp and horizontal weft threads impose a gridded framework that is necessarily linear and two-dimensional. It guides but it also constrains. Presented here is a group of newly acquired textile works, all on view for the first time, which bear witness to artistic experiments in color and form that both celebrate and defy this intrinsic geometry. Included in this exhibition is Compostela, 1985, the Museum’s recent acquisition by Adela Akers. The work is geometrically intricate and also presents as two works, depending upon the side from which it is viewed. Helena Hernmarck’s work, Euclid’s Elements, 1995, also in the exhibition, expertly creates an optical illusion involving a ball, a pyramid and rainbow, rendering a “sculptural multimedia assemblage within a two-dimensional wool textile.”

New York

Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science
Tang Museum, Skidmore College
Saratoga Springs, NY
through June 12, 2022
See More

Lia Cook Connectome
Connectome , Lia Cook, woven cotton and rayon , 72″ x 51”, 2013. Photo by Lia Cook

For centuries, fiber arts have influenced practical, theoretical, and pedagogical areas of the sciences as diverse as digital technology, mathematics, neuroscience, medicine, and more. Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science explores this relationship through contemporary art and historical artifacts centered on four key themes: shape, body, brain and machine. A celebration of interdisciplinary creativity and collaborative learning, Radical Fiber foregrounds each work as at once fine art, process-driven craft, and scientific tool, complicating existing frameworks across fields. Can a crochet hook and yarn uniquely explain the complexities of non-Euclidean geometry? Why does the 1804 Jacquard loom relate to modern computing? How did the accidental discovery of synthetic mauveine dye in 1856 pave the way for modern pharmaceuticals yet also generate toxic environmental impact? Why do we respond differently to a woven photograph than a printed one? These and other questions will reframe the histories of fiber/science intersections and ask not only how artists continue to engage in scientific inquiry through fiber, but also importantly, how the medium can be used to improve our world for the future.

During this exhibition a study will be conducted in the neuroscience lab using woven faces (by Lia Cook)

Connecticut

The Westport Idea
Museum of Contemporary Art
Westport, Connecticut
Through March 12, 2022
https://mocawestport.org/the-westport-idea/

Norma Minkowitz From Nothing to Nothing
Norma Minkowitz, From Nothing to Nothing, 4×12” 1986  cotton fiber, colored pencil, metal screen, shellac 1986; Paul Camacho, Portrait of a Girl with Striped Shirt 1966; Lisa Daugherty, Synagogue 67th Street, 1962 
Westport Public Art Collections, Photo by Jenna Bascom Photography

The Westport Idea features a diverse range of selections from Westport, Connecticut Public Art Collections (WestPAC) holdings of more than 2,000 artworks. Most of these works, by 50 different artists, have been housed in public schools and municipal buildings, not always accessible to the public. The collection includes works by Alex Katz, Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Mitchell, Robert Indiana and Norma Minkowitz. Her 1986 work, From Nothing to Nothing, is made of cotton fiber, colored pencil, metal screen and shellac. The vessel is both knitted and crocheted, a departure for her at that time. The exterior is knitted, the ball is crocheted with metallic screen in the background. The work, says Minkowitz, is about perpetual isolation, loneliness and entrapment as were many of her vessels during this period.

Art Assembled: New This Week in January

February 3, 2022 0 Comment

We’ve been kicking off the year at browngrotta arts with some impressive art, and we’re excited to keep it coming for the rest of the year! In January, we introduced our followers to art from Eva Vargö, Ane Henriksen, Hisako Sekijima, Gjertrud Hals, Blair Tate and so many more talented artists. Just in case you missed it, we’re recapping it here so you can view all of their impressive works in one place.

Eva Vargö 7ev Japandí, Japanese and Korean book papers 23.5” x 22.375” x 2.5”, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This art, Japandí, was created by Swedish artist, Eva Vargö. When creating this piece, Vargö used Japanese and Korean book papers collected throughout her travels across East Asia. Vargö integrated these materials through a complex process where she fused paper and linen-thread materials into her weaving technique. When asked about why she creates, she has said she often weaves to deals with life’s fast pace.

“The working process is often repetitive and so it becomes meditative,” said Eva Vargö. “Mostly it gives me some peace of mind and my aim is to work at a slow pace. To be able to do one thing at a time without rush and to let go – to meet the unforeseen. I want to trust my intuition and my inner voice.”

30ah Reserve, Ane Henriksen, linen, silk, acrylic painted rubber matting, oak frame, 93.75” x 127.625” x 2.5”, 2015. Photos by Tom Grotta.

This artwork, Reserve, was handwoven by Danish artist Ane Henriksen. This profound piece was created with the intention of highlighting some of the ecological peril that was see in our society today. When explaining this piece, Henriksen said:

“Nature is threatened,” said Ane Henriksen. “I hope this is expressed in my image, which at first glance can be seen as a peaceful, recognizable view of nature, but when you move closer and see the material, it might make you uneasy, and add thoughts of how human activity is a threat against nature. By framing the nature motif museum-like in a solid oak frame, I try to make you aware how we store small natural remains in reserves — in the same way as we store exquisite objects from our past history in our museums.”

650hs Suspended Decision, Hisako Sekijima, shuro-palm, walnut, ramie, twill-plaiting
and connected, 10.625″ x 15.75″ x 7.5″, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Suspended Decision was created by acclaimed Japanese artist Hisako Sekijima. In the art world, Sekijima has long been recognized as an artist whose innovation and artistry seem to know few bounds as her techniques and approaches extend well beyond traditional basketing making. 

“I call myself a basketmaker because I inform my work by thinking and processing the nature and history of basketry,” said Hisako Sekijima. “And also, because in order to realize the ideas, I choose to use materials and structural methods that have typically been used for basketmaking. It pleases me that my ideas and the final results of my work expand the boundary well beyond what I once thought of as the domain of basketry.”

6gh Terra 2021 series, Gjertrud Hals, silk thread, resin, 7″ x 13.5″ x 13.5″, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Norwegian artist, Gjertrud Hals, consistently pushes the envelope and impresses with her creative knitted vessels. Hals was born and raised on the northwestern coast Norway and has spent much of her time traveling and learning about various cultures, and she has discussed how these experiences largely influence her work today. More specifically, Hals has discussed how India, Jordan, Norway and Japan have had a significant impact on her artwork.

“As a seasoned traveler I have observed many different cultures,” said Gjertrud Hals. “Much of my artistic work is an attempt at expressing the connection between the islands micro-history and the world’s macro-history.”

15bt Pangaea, Blair Tate, linen, cotton rope and aluminum, 46″ x 29″ x 1.5″, 2021. Photos by Tom Grotta.

This piece comes from American artist, Blair Tate. Tate has been creating contemporary work since the 1970’s under the influence of the 60’s minimalism and modernist architecture and is known for exploring flat, woven grids in her work.

Pangaea was created last year amid the pandemic and was featured in our exhibition Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change. When creating this specific piece, Tate said she consciously wove to the very limits of her warp to minimize loom waste. Whereas in the past she said she may have incorporated interruptions in the strips while weaving, thereby wasting the unwoven warp; in Pangaea, the gaps emerge only in the rearranging.

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