Sati Zech

bollenarbeit 244, 2014  oil on canvas  77 x 60"  sati zech

Berlin artist, Sati Zech makes joyful yet meditative artworks that she calls bollenarbeit that refer, she says, to the hills and low mountains of southern Germany, the region where she was born.

bollenarbeit no 242, 2014  69.5 x 34 inches  oil, canvas  Sati Zech

To make them she tears apart sheets of canvas into strips and then reassembles them.  Sometimes they are overlapped, sometimes she uses white archival glue, sometimes plaster or wax or thread to put the pieces together.  The domes and dots of thick red paint are placed in horizontals on the cloth surfaces before or sometimes after this assembling.

bollenarbeit no 19, 2006  oil, canvas  94 x 63 inches, Sati Zech

In 2006 she had an exhibition of this body of work at the Heidelberger Kunstverein in Germany, and has gone on to show variations on the theme around the world.  Her New York gallery, the Howard Scott has this to say about Sati Zech's bollen paintings.

"The artworks of Sati Zech are unique amalgams of historically ritualistic mark making and 21st century self-expression.  They emanate feelings of femaleness: her power and passion, her cycles and repetitions."

bollenarbeit 110, 2010  37.5 x 27 inches, oil, canvas, wax, Sati Zech

"The layering, gluing, tearing, sewing all give rise to the idea of labour.  Specifically women's labour, a kind of thoughtful, painstaking never-ending work that manifests itself in tactile visions of strength, beauty, necessity, serendipity."

 "They contain the emotional dynamism of Louise Bourgois, the semantic materiality of Joseph Beuys, the subtle tactility of Eva Hesse and the symbolic charge of African art."  all quotes from Howard Scott Gallery

Sati Zech's studio with her dog, Rudi

Why does this work resonate so much?
Is it the colour?
red .... white
Or the repetition of rounded shape
Or the variety within that repetition
like natural elements - like human figures
Or the emotion expressed with the tearing up of the cloth
and the made elements
the destruction?
Or is it the hand-made de-skilled repairing of that cloth?
Is it because the artist has created a new square
a new human scaled rectangle
fabric that looks to be careless,
but that has taken much thought and care.
much work
There is a feeling of safety in these pieces.

 "These works are about communication.  The single bollen are like elements of a piece of music, or flags, or skin that's been branded."  Sati Zech

for Louise Bourgois #17   Sati Zech bollenarbeit detail

 She is inspired by the large sensual traditional artforms of several African countries.

for Louise Bourgois #18  Sati Zech bollenarbeit detail

 She is inspired by female sensibility.

All information is from the internet.  Click here for Howard Scott gallery, here for an image-full Zeit visit with the artist and here for Sati Zech's own website.
Sati Zech speaks about destroying and re-building and about the power and rhythm of communication on this video from Paris.

April Anne Martin MFA graduate exhibition Art Institute of Chicago 2016

The Sun Had Not Yet Risen   2016   copper blind, 3 feet wide, 10 feet high
The Sea Was Indistinguishable from the Sky  2016
  tupperware with cyanotype printmaking in process
MFA exhibition, April Anne Martin

Simplicity is the core
pared down to the essence
not removing the poetry,
but pared down
not removing the connective tissue between all the elements
not diminishing that quality that compels us to look again
and again and again
but pared down

in the far left  window sill, The Sea Rose 2016 paper sculpture, 
on the floor, The Sea Was Indistinguishable from the Sky,
 in front of the window, The Sun Had Not Yet Risen,
(this photo taken around 6 pm) 

simplified
pared down
every unnecessary element discarded
spare
elegant
sumptuous

April Anne Martin's MFA graduate exhibition Art Institute of Chicago,
Sullivan Galleries April 29 - May 18, 2016

Like Eva Hesse,
Martin uses a complicated minimalism marked with fantasy
Like Roni Horn,
she pays attention to the physical qualities of her material
Like Mark Rothko,
she uses a vertical format marked with shimmering horizontals
Like a poet,
she wants to elicit emotional response
Like a scientist,
she asks questions about what would happen in nature and records the process
Like an artist,
she doesn't want to know the answer ahead of time

She allows nature to be her equal partner

April Martin works with the changeable daily elements that each of us experience and think we know. Water.  Air.  Natural light.  Time.

The objects in this exhibition hold the time of day within them.

Inspired by modernist women artists and poets, Martin quotes Virginia Woolf's 1931 novel The Waves, in her titles.  Quoted below are the first few lines of that poem-novel.

The sun had not yet risen.  The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it.  Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually.
As they  neared the shore each bar rose, heaped itself, broke and swept a thin veil of white water across the sand.  The wave paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper whose breath comes and goes unconsciously.            Virginia Woolf

In the above photo,  Martin is installing lengths of watercolour paper that she has treated with a cyanotype process over a period of twenty days.

Nine papers were each washed and exposed simultaneously in the tub in the middle of her space. This happened every two days at times that correspond to the nine interludes in Woolf's novel where she described the coastal scene at various times of day.  April Martin isolated the first few words of each of Woolf's interludes to create titles for her cyanotypes.

The interludes were not put into the space until the final day as during most of the exhibition they were drying in her studio.  In fact there was a performance every other day as part of the exhibition.
Follow this link to see photos.

"During the 20 day exhibition I will make 10 cyano type prints that respond to the sun's changing position in the sky, using sun and water.  The prints wash and expose themselves in the gallery and then are moved to my studio in another building where they are dried and displayed."  April Martin

On May 16 (graduation day), she moved the last of the cyanotypes into the gallery..

My studio is a scaled down space to observe the perpetual motion and aliveness of things. I set up physical exchanges between dry and wet materials that appear if only for an instant, to slow or stop time. Formally it is a container for activity, and sculpturally many of my works address this contained boundary, threatening to overflow, to flood and leak. 

Outside where the scale shifts, and the permeable drywall boundaries of my studio fall away, everything is different. Weather stacks itself into the present daily form made from dry/wet and hot/cold exchanges. We experience it in the moment we spend with it, it blows our body, it drips down, burns the back of our neck; it moves itself inside of us. April Anne Martin

from left to right, The sun had not yet risen, The sun rose higher, The sun rose, The sun, risen, no longer couched on a green mattress darting a fitful glance through watery jewels, bared its face and looked straight over the waves. The sun had risen to its full height, The sun no longer stood in the middle of the sky, The sun had now sunk lower in the sky, The sun was sinking, Now the sun had sunk. 

The Sea Rose 2016  pad of graph paper with evaporated salt and miracle gro' 11" h 

Another modernist woman writer, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)'s poem Sea Rose gave the artist a title for her paper sculpture in the window.   (shown above)

The Sun Had Not Yet Risen  2016  copper  10 ' h x 3 ' w, April Martin
this photo taken around 8 pm, the blind is closed

The vertical copper sculpture reacts to and holds the light and heat of the sun.  It changes with the time of day, but it seems to be timeless.  I will close this post with one more quote by a modernist poet.  This is from Marianne Moore's poem When I Buy Pictures

"It must be lit with piercing glances into the life of things; 

It must acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it"

Susan Lordi Marker

Soulskin: Seeding the Prairie  1999  nylon, iron, copper, pigment 76 x 41 x 3 inches Susan Lordi Marker

When Susan Lordi Marker was a little girl, her mother took her to museums.

Damiana's Cloth 1991 rayon, silk, thread, 22 x 25 x 3 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She also traveled to Sicily to visit relatives.  She was given vintage garments and other textiles by the older generations she met there.  She heard their stories and the old proverbs.

Damiana is the name of Susan Lordi Marker's great grandmother.  In the piece above, although text is visible among the layers,  we can't read it.  Lordi Marker's use of text is as symbol of experience and knowledge.  It communicates without naming.

Excavation: Soulskin #11 1997  linen blend, thread, dye, pigment 66 x 34 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She realized later that the tangible objects that she was given were evidence that those people had been alive.   That they were marked by wear made them metaphors for her relatives' life experience.

Excavation: Soulskin #11  1997 detail Susan Lordi Marker

In her early work, she experimented with using the actual clothing. Pale shapes of a woman's dress floats on a ground of asymemetrical spirals on a fabric made sheer with burn out.

a remnant: Helionthus  2010  linen blend, gold leaf, thread, dyed  48 x 84 inches  Susan Lordi Marker

Trained as a scientist in her first degree, she went back to school when her children were little and received an MFA degree with honours from the University of Kansas in 1993.

soulskin: cricket  2007  silk, dye, thread  96 x 84 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She then studied with Joy Boutrup at the Kansas City Art Institute and learned ways to layer, fuse, and otherwise manipulate cloth.  She learned about cloque (lye crimping) and devore (chemical burn-out), two methods that make her textile work unique.

the field is sewn 2010  silk, dye, thread  30 x 48 inches  Susan Lordi Marker

little marks
metals
cloth that is hung away from the wall so that it moves
it breathes
it casts a shadow

soulskin: sun, lake, dragonfly  2000  linen blend, dye, pigment, gold leaf, devore  90 x 54 inches Susan Lordi Marker

Susan Lordi Marker noticed that cloth has an ability to survive.  In fact, it became more evocative through the variety of harsh chemical processes she imposed on it.  Stronger in a way.  More unique. To the artist, this makes cloth a metaphor for life itself.

Her work is about the essence of cloth.

"You must pull from within to access the universal"  Susan Lordi Marker

soulskin: sun, lake, dragonfly detail  Susan Lordi Marker

Currently, Susan Lordi Marker is working on a line of gift ware called Willow Tree.  She makes original figures based on her observations of life models.  She speaks here about how her small sculptures are for the giver (who will purchase the piece to express an emotion) than they are about the object itself.  Lordi Marker believes that there is a personal connection for both giver and receiver. Read more about the artist's work with Willow Tree here.

Susan Lordi Marker in her prairie

The artist continues to restore a piece of land in Missouri, re-seeding it with prairie grasses.

Seeding The Prairie:  Detail  Susan Lordi Marker 

Susan Lordi Marker and her powerful one of a kind cloths have left a mark in the world.
She has been an influence.

The aesthetic of time is in each piece.
The aesthetic of labour.
The work of the work.

These pieces also remind us of the organic rhythm of nature, evoked here with these small dimensional marks.

The images in this post are from the official website for Susan Lordi Marker's fine art textiles and also from the Telos Portfolio on the artist, published in 2003 with an essay by Hildreth York.  Go to the artist's website for more information and detail images.  Thank you and acknowledgements to Ms York for her informative essay.

Reiko Sudo and Nuno

A post about the recent exhibition at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte Ontario, Reiko Sudo and Nuno: Textiles from Japan

Curated by Alan C. Elder from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the exhibition was designed by Reiko Sudo in the wabi sabi - beautiful  Norah Rosamond Hughes Gallery, a re-configured space in what used used to be a working woolen weaving factory .    In the above photo, one of the twenty -two columns is wrapped red polyester fabric, Paper Roll 2002, a chemical lace embroidery designed by Reiko Sudo in 2002.

When Alan C, Elder showed Reiko Sudo images of the gallery, she focused her attention on the columns that line up in the temporary exhibition space and dressed them in her original fabrics.  The white pleated and slashed polyester screen on one of the walls is named Tanabata, and was designed in 2004 by Reiko Sudo and Hiroko Suwa.  (Tanabata is a traditional annual festival.  On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, girls pray to become good at sewing by decorating bamboo with folded paper charms.

 Scrapyard, 1994 designed by Reiko Sudo and Hiroko Suwa.  Rust dyeing, 100% rayon and iron.

This exhibition was not only serenely beautiful, it was also very informative for those of us interested in surface design.  A dedicated wall of samples served to explain the variety of processes used to create the fabrics was an integral part of the exhibit.   Scrapyard was made by laying damp fabric on a square of rusty iron, shown above.

 Length of time was the variable in how densely the material would be coloured.

The exhibition was in Canada from July 11 - November 22, 2014) and celebrated the 30th anniversary of NUNO, the Tokyo based textile studio, and Reiko Sudo's association with it.

The natural light and the decrepit stone walls of the historic building added to the elegance and mystery of these minimalist yet sensuous fabrics.  Above, Cracked Denim Rounds, 2010 designed by Reiko Sudo and Hiroko Suwa. Burnout and bonding, cotton and polyester.

Denim was originally a French twill called serge de Nimes.

 Flower Almanac , 2006 designed by Reiko Sudo.  Jacquard weave, 100 percent cotton.

A double weave in threads of different hefts and twists.

detail of Skylights, 2012 designed by Reiko Sudo.  Another double weave.  98% cotton, 2% polyurethane.

left: Kamaboko Stripe, 2014  Designed by Reiko Sudo, jacquard weave, 100% cotton, Right: Skylights 2012.

Visitors were invited to touch the samples.

 By handling the cloth and reading the details, we learn.

Congratulations to Michael Rikley-Lancaster, Executive Director and Curator of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, and to all of the many who were involved in bringing such an important international exhibition to Almonte.    A catalog of the exhibition is available from the museum, with essays by Alen C. Elder, Naomi Pollock and Yoko Imai accompanying photographs of each cloth.

Dorothy Caldwell

Flying Over Salt Lakes,
stitching on cotton with earth ochre, approximately 13" x 16",  2013

Dorothy Caldwell has become an icon for textile artists, exhibiting and teaching around the world.  We Canadians claim her as our own, as she has lived in Ontario since the mid seventies, relocating here from the USA.   The images in this post are of Dorothy Caldwell's latest exhibition, Silent Ice, Deep Patience, installed in the Art Gallery of Peterborough March 21 until June 22, 2014.

Left: Map Without Words
9 feet, 4 inches, x 8 feet, 5 inches, Right: Silent Ice/Deep Patience, 23" x 23". both 2013

Upon entering, the viewer descends a long ramp towards the main exhibition space, welcomed by five small paintings made with hand stitch and earth ochres (see top photo) on the ramp's wall.  Then, through an opening in that wall, the two pieces shown above beckon.  Large scale, empty space, intimate marks.   We are in Caldwell country.

Wandering Time,
approximately 24" x 18", wax and silkscreen resist on cotton with stitching, 2011

In many of her pieces, Caldwell lines up coloured patches along edges.  She draws our eye up to the sky, then over to the west and the east, and then brings it back to the centre.  Line drawings are couched onto the surfaces, like trails.  Archetypal vessel shapes resonate.

wandering time, 2011, detail

Dorothy Caldwell's stitches recall the random repetition of the small marks we are familiar with in nature. Leaves fluttering in the wind, ripples in the water.  Some large, some small, some linear, some a splotch, some widely spaced, others packed together.  Footprints on a beach.

wandering time,  2011, detail

"My work is an ongoing investigation of the meaning of place.  I investigate how  humans mark and shape the land and how those human marks interact with the natural geology."  Dorothy Caldwell

Map Without Words,
wax and silk screen resist on cotton, stitching, applique, 9'4" x 8'5", 2013

We often meet in the centre in Dorothy Caldwell's world.  Four corners, four patch, grids, crosses, grid the large unknown to make sense of it. There is order within chaos here.  Human geography.  

This body of work is the result of the artist's travels to the Australian Outback and the Canadian Arctic. Interested for decades in how humans mark the land, (previous exhibitions Field Notes (1998) and Ground Cover (2000) this current exploration of wilderness landscapes is a continuation for the artist.  

Map without Words, detail

Dorothy Caldwell uses cloth as a vehicle to translate her observations because cloth is like the land. Cloth reacts as land does to human intervention.  Simple actions like wearing, mending, stitching and patching make marks on cloth just as farming, road building, and daily walks mark the earth.

A Red Hill, A Green Hill,
 ink wash, earth ochre on cotton with stitching and applique, 9'4" x 9'8" 2012

In the large scale tactile painting shown above, Caldwell applied ink wash and earth pigments to the cloth as a change from her usual resisted dye or discharge methods.   Thoughtfulness is evident.  The aesthetics of time and touch, evident.

A Red Hill, A Green Hill, detail

Small patches and marks that drift into atmospheric hazes when seen at a distance, are unique and very real human habitations upon close inspection.  The big thread used in the waves of rugged stitching along the lower quarter of this wall piece was rubbed with earth and connects with the viewer on many levels.

A Red Hill, A Green Hill , detail

"I am intrigued by maps and by the organization of land through patterns of settlement and agriculture.  I have come to see the dichotomy between conventional mapping that identifies intimate landmarks and simplifies them into abstract shapes and textures."  Dorothy Caldwell

How Do We Know When It Is Night?
wax and silkscreen resist on cotton, stitch and applique, 10 feet by 9 feet 6 inches, 2010

Little patches along each edge and down the centre,
bowls drawn as if with a giant pencil,
duality, in and out

How Do We Know It' Night?  detail

"Caldwell tells students that what an artist needs to learn more than anything is how to make time for their art"  Ann Jaeger

How Do We Know It's Night?  Detail

Caldwell's large pieces have balance, stillness
They cause us to think beyond the gallery
about the vastness of nature and how nature has its own system.
The larger seasonal cycles, the many small parts within vastness.
That human marks are revealed by time and accumulation,
then erased by wind, eroded by water, hazed over by weather.
Stain of earth, footprint of man, animal tracks through the forest,
like poetry, these things occur one by one and resonate with personal experiences that don't always have anything to do with land, more with relationships.

Signs,
wax and silkscreen resist on cotton,stitching, applique,  8'9" x 8'0", 2014

The artist's most recent large work returns to her preferred methods of marking large pieces of cloth with resist techniques.  The subtle grid of the ground, a new linear shape, and the painted squares and crescents dotting the interior are atmospheric.

"Maps give a viewpoint of the land filtered through what is important to the mapmaker.  I am mapping unfamiliar territory, identifying my personal landmarks through gathering, touching and recording the contents of the landscape.  In this way I form a sense of place for myself."  Dorothy Caldwell

Signs, detail

This post is about the large scale work but there are also many small pieces exhibited as well as an entire room devoted to the artist's collections of shells, lichens, bones, rusty wires, journal pages, iron nails, and her many books of marks and collected earth pigments.  How the artist works with the land to make these 'maps' deserves its own write up.  The video of Dorothy Caldwell (click here) perhaps fills the gap.

Other internet sources for this artist:
Ann Jaeger's informative review of Caldwell;s life and work on trout and plaid online journal,
Barbara Lee Smith's curated exhibition catalog Traces ,
as well as Caldwell's own website and the CCCA artist profile .

Caldwell's exhibition was shown at the Idea Exchange in winter 2015 and went on to St Mary's University gallery in Halifax for March and April of the same year.  This review by akimbo halifax correspondent Daniel Higham was published april 7 2015.  Good to see some writing about this artist.  Joe Lewis also wrote a review in Fibre quarterly....have to find that for you and shall insert it here when I do. xx

The Dorothy Caldwell quotes in this post are from her statement found in Barbara Lee Smith's essay in the Traces catalog.  All photos are from the exhibition and are by Judy Martin with permission from Dorothy Caldwell.