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| Fire Flower Batik on Silk 7' x 3' |
Symbols of Nature & Man:
A Journey of 40,000 Years
May 3 - 24, 2013
Previews Begin Friday, April 26th
Artists' Reception Friday, May 10th, 6-8 pm
Currently in exhibition at the Textile Museum, Washington, D.C., these extraordinary artists will travel across the country to Bainbridge Island, with previews of their related show beginning in the Gallery on April 26th. (The D.C. exhibit, Out of
Commentary on the exhibit from The Washington Post:
The exhibit, which opened Friday, is the final one before the Textile Museum relocates to the George Washington University campus as the cornerstone of its new museum in 2014. It centers on Indonesia and Laos and examines how four contemporary artists draw inspiration from ancient artistic techniques in a way that also allows them to customize and reinterpret the art — and help keep it relevant.
The 42-item exhibition pairs handmade batiks and ethnic weaving, and includes 17 pieces from the museum’s collection to help demonstrate the linkages through time.
There are over 1,000 ethnic groups in Southeast Asian, and most of them have some sort of textile tradition, says exhibit curator Mattiebelle Gittinger. A woman on the north coast of Java in a dark blue sarong is in mourning. Certain motifs in blue and white are worn in another region for weddings. The textiles are “made to be specific. They have a great deal of validity,” says Gittinger. “When contemporary artists go in search of inspiration, they sense this validity and that’s what they respond to.”
The husband-and-wife team Agus Ismoyo and Nia Fliam focus primarily on Indonesian batik (a pattern created by covering parts of the cloth with removable wax to keep them from being dyed). Batik motifs are politically and spiritually powerful and the couple uses the Kawung (a cosmological symbol of overlapping circles), Parang (knife) and Tree of Life throughout the smooth commercially woven cloths that provide the foundation for their patterning. They experiment with techniques: Appliqué and layers of cloth are melded together to create the varicolored forms in the hanging piece “Extended Family”; “Trash Can of Tradition” uses Javanese puppet figures and the Kawang and Parang motifs to express fear over losing the underpinnings of Indonesian cultural history.
Excerpted from: "Textile Museum displays ethnic weaving from Southeast Asia before its move to GW campus"
Lonnae O'Neal Parker, The Washington Post, April 12, 2013
Dates for related events will be announced shortly. Please visit this blog for all the latest information.
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