LA-based Swiss artist Christina Forrer’s new tapestries at Luhring Augustine continue to explore complex and troubled relationships, specifically between mankind and nature in the show’s most dramatic work, ‘Sepulcher.’ Titled after the space in which a dead person would be laid, the piece features a blazing sun, burning fields, bolts of lightning and icy breath from a blue figure in the sky, all signs of nature wreaking havoc. Yet lady bugs, a waterfall and a fertile orchard suggest continued benefit and abundance. All crafted in bright and pleasing colors, Forrer’s apocalypse is tempered by love of and hope for the natural world. (On view in Tribeca through Oct 29th).
Tag: tapestry
Ebony G Patterson at Hales Gallery
In the darkened space of Hales Gallery’s Chelsea location, Ebony G. Patterson’s ‘night garden’ entices with elaborately cut works on paper and wall-mounted tapestry installations decorated with strings of beads, glitter and other alluring objects. Each features a female figure (here in pink) with missing face or other body parts, a representative of loss who is literally no longer whole herself. Patterson explains that on occasions of mourning, it’s often women who are the public face of their family or community; as such, this central, sequined figure, like the garden around her, represents ‘beauty concealing trauma and violence.’ (On view through June 18th).
Analia Saban at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Can painting be a tapestry? Can it be sculpture? Analia Saban continues to explore painting’s possibilities in her current show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, in which she presents woven paintings, pigments derived from Tesla paint, and dried paint as a printing surface. Here, one of a series of paintings created by weaving dried paint strips through linen features a gradient inspired by image-editing software. Appearing in various colors of the spectrum, each gradient painting juxtaposes the digital and handmade, painting and fabric production, offering a fascinating hybrid medium. (On view in Chelsea through June 19th. Masks and social distancing required).
Etel Adnan at Galerie Lelong
Etel Adnan’s ‘Danse Nocturne’ is a standout in her current show of painting and tapestry at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong, its bold lines and saturated color communicating a vibrant energy that reaches right across the gallery space. Abstracted landscapes, starting with an image of an olive tree at the gallery’s entrance, suggest a joyful experience of nature rendered in a rich material – wool tapestry. Adnan has explained that that an artist’s materials are like a co-author, conveying meaning in a unique way; here, tapestry mediates the work’s expressionistic immediacy and conveying a considered appreciation of natural beauty. (On view through Dec 19th. Masks and social distancing are required).
Josep Grau-Garriga at Salon94 Bowery
At over twenty feet tall, late Catalan fiber artist Josep Grau-Garriga’s monumental tapestry ‘February Light’ dominates visitors to Salon94 Bowery. Made in the 70s after Grau-Garriga had pioneered a move away from realist tapestries crafted with expensive materials into expressionist compositions fashioned from fibers including string, hemp and even old sacks, February Light’s wooden rods and ropes give the piece a remarkable boldness. Created in the years just after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the many openings in the blood-red areas of the artwork seem to continue Grau-Garriga’s frequent political allusions. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 29th).