World of Threads Festival
Material Connections
2012 Exhibition: Artworks
Material Connection brings together three contemporary fibre artists; Meghan Price, Anna Torma and Xiaojing Yan, whose varied use of materials and cultural backgrounds gives a sampling of the dynamic world of fibre arts.
Writing by Stanzie Tooth
Photography by Gareth Bate
Xiaojing Yan
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Curators
- Canada: Ontario: Toronto: Amanda McCavour & Stanzie Tooth
Artists
- Canada: Ontario: Toronto: Meghan Price, Xiaojing Yan. New Brunswick: Baie Verte: Anna Torma.
Gallery
- Lonsdale Gallery
City
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dates
- Nov. 9 - Dec. 2, 2012
Working your way through the exhibition, can you speak about the artist's work and how they fit within your show?
There was a really nice interplay in the exhibition. I thought that the artists really complimented and enhanced each other's work. While each of these artists work in a very different ways, it was interesting to see how similar concerns regarding the language of fibre could be seen in the work of all three artists. Attention to line, structure and form could be seen throughout the exhibition. Also, there was an unanticipated connective vein throughout the exhibition as each of the artists were exploring dualities between the structured and the organic.
Xiaojing Yan presented a series of her fibre paper and natural reed sculptures. The concept of duality is at the core of Xiaojing's work. A Chinese artist living and working in Canada, Yan's works draw from her cultural heritage as well as her experiences in North America. Yan's work uses the delicate techniques and translucent materials found in traditional lantern making and implement these to create abstracted sculptural forms. Her sculptures take on the shape of organic forms (butterflies, chrysalises, seed pods) and at the same time seem informed by modernist art and architecture. Particularly in her most recent pieces, the forms are becoming increasingly complex and precarious.
Meghan Price
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Meghan Price's work reveals both the playfulness and structure of fibre materials. In Material Connections she presented two series of works. The first were woven and embroidered works, which employed interferences in the weave and weft of fabrics to describe action. My favourite of these, "Woven Flight", was a large digital Jacquard weaving where areas of the weave and weft of the fabric were left loose, their intersecting lines describing the flight pattern of birds. I liked how she used the material to describe the structured yet organic nature of bird migration. Her other series of works were lace wire pieces. Alongside these wire works were prints, which were created by inking the wire forms and running them through a press. There was a wonderful interplay between original object and print, with an interesting play between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional.
Anna Torma
Baie Verte, New Brunswick, Canada
Anna Torma showed works from her latest series, Transverbal. These pieces were hand embroidered wall hangings that seem to use the language of doodling, blind contour and free consciousness studies. Looking at these recent pieces, I'm reminded by my favourite quote by Picasso: "It took me my whole life to learn to draw like a child." Though Torma's pieces have an engaging exuberance and free form feel, upon closer inspection one sees the intense consideration and the amazing technique behind the work. I appreciate the contrast in these works - the openness of the drawing and the time-intensive and skilled execution.
