joseph scissorhands

Sunday, 12 March 2023

Antigone: Women in Fibre Art

Barbara Levittoux-Świderska (1933-2019) - Fire (Poźar), 1974 (detail)

In a week that celebrated International Women's Day it was a pleasure to visit an exhibition solely devoted to women artists. Antigone: Women in Fibre Art is a brief but very useful survey of European female fibre art practitioners that served to fill gaps in my knowledge of the genre. The exhibition is built around the work of Jagoda Buić who recently passed away, and that of Barbara Levittoux-Świderska. The title of the exhibition references Buić's work named after the heroine of Sophocles' Greek tragedy with its theme of individual action or free will and fate. Like Antigone, several of the artists here - Abakanowicz, Buić, Levittoux-Świderska and Pachuka opposed the prevailing views of textiles as decorative, feminine and being lower in the artistic hierarchy. They revolutionised textiles with techniques that involved weaving, knotting, plaiting, coiling and braiding unconventional materials such as horse hair, rope and fleece. I recently posted about the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz in the current retrospective of her work at Tate Modern (here), but it was to discover more about the huge, draped, openly woven net works of Barbara Levittoux-Świderska, and the beautifully arranged pleated, layered works of Jagoda Buić, as well as works by younger fibre artists that drew me to this exhibition. Equally as interesting is the work of Ewa Pachuka (1936 - 2020), which involves crocheting sisal, jute and hemp cords into three-dimensional human forms which resemble effigies or artificial skins. I found her piece - The Open Man (below) to be the most disturbing artwork in the exhibition. Younger, contemporary fibre artists carrying the torch for the genre are also represented here in the colourful, figures of Anna Perach which are equally contorted as those of Pachuka, but the eye is distracted by the vibrant tufts of patterned fabric which cover these bodies. Perach uses a technique called 'tufting' to cover her figures in a richly textural covering that resembles deep pile carpet to examine ideas of gender and identity. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the textile figures of Louise Bourgeois seen last year in the show devoted to her textile works at the Southbank Centre (here). Lastly, but by no means least here, is the work of another young artist in Lithuanian Egle Jauncems, who creates wall-hung textile assemblages investigating among other things male power, and truth and appearances. I found her smaller layered works to be very reminiscent in feel in terms of colour and shape to the collages of Frances Davidson (here). Though small, this was a most enlightening exhibition and I'm sure the names Barbara Levittoux-Świderska, Jagoda Buić and Ewa Pachuka will no doubt crop up again in larger surveys of the fibre art medium.

Barbara Levittoux-Świderska (1933-2019) - Fire (Poźar), 1974

Jagoda Buić - Sails, 2019

Ewa Pachucka - The Open Man, 1969

Jagoda Buić - Antigone, 1977

Magdalena Abakanowicz - Bordeaux, 1969

Jagoda Buić - White Reflections, 1970-75

Anna Perach - Self Decapitation, 2022

Egle Jauncems - Untitled 8, 2021

Egle Jauncems - The Paler King I

Egle Jauncems - The Paler King II

Barbara Levittoux-Świderska - Cuboid (Prostopadlościan), 1980 c.

Jagoda Buić - Untitled, 1976

Jagoda Buić - Dubrovnik, 1973

Anna Perach - Hand & Face, 2022

Anna Perach - Face, 2022

Anna Perach - Expansion X, 2023

Jagoda Buić - Photograph, 2019

Egle Jauncems - Untitled, 2021

Antigone: Women in Fibre Art

until 18th March

Richard Saltoun Gallery

41 Dover Street

London

W1S

Sunday, 5 March 2023

Abstract Colour

Gillian Ayres - Astrophil and Stella, 1982-83

"In Abstract Colour, we have highlighted Gillian Ayres' practice to punctuate each chapter in this exhibition, in conjunction with other artists working towards similar artistic concerns. Each artist uses their work to tell stories and express emotional planes experienced while making. While one's reaction to colour cannot be generalised, colour can function as a universal language and entry point to begin conversations around our own thoughts and feelings." - Lewis Dalton Gilbert.

A really enjoyable survey this of contemporary abstract artists based around the busy, colourful works of Gillian Ayres (1930 - 2018). Colour is such a huge part of the art and design experience. Creatives have used it for generations to create moods, or invoke psychological or physiological effects in the viewer. With so many hues and shades of individual colours to choose from using colour can be a daunting prospect. As an artist myself, I formerly felt personally intimidated by colour, choosing instead to focus on other formal elements like line and form, creating work primarily in black and white. It was a pleasure then to see the abandon with which the artists here employ the variety of hues in the across the whole spectrum in their work. Many artists use colour in a systematic way applying their own ideologies and sets of rules to colour theory in their work. Others use colour in a more spontaneous, instinctual manner. Each colour has its own characteristics and associations attached to it depending on whatever culture or context it is viewed from. I enjoyed seeing how each artist employed colour as an exploration of their own personal abstract visual language which was variously formal and geometric, or loose and painterly. There were bold statements expressing the joys of the beauty of the full spectrum of the colour palette, and there were other darker, more tonal nuanced works. It was a pleasure to see the inclusion of ceramics in this exhibition. I was unaware of this aspect of Gillian Ayres' oeuvre, and liked the solid, bulbous forms that she created. Nicola Tassie's works here were my favourite of the ceramicists though. I enjoyed the subtle tonal harmonies in her palette, and the sense of pattern in her mark-making. Having worked for a longer period, Ayres' work (quite rightly) does tend to dominate the show however, Ayres is so assured in her mark-making, colour choices and complex compositions. I have developed a new found appreciation of her work.