 |
| Detail of 'Threads of Life' Julie Ryder |
14 September - 9 October on Thursday night 6-8pm
Timeless Textiles
90 Hunter Street
Gallery Hours
Wed - Sat 10 -4pm
Sun 10-2pm
www.timelesstextiles.com.au
The word chromophilia
means an abnormal love of colour, deriving from the Greek chromo (colour) and phileo
(to love), and is described as the property possessed by most cells of staining
readily with appropriate dyes.
I first became interested in chromophilia when I was researching the use of Scanning Electron
micrographs (SEM’s) in my Master’s work at ANU in 2003. With a past history of
working in laboratories, I was scanning fragments of my dyed fabrics at very
high magnification with the SEM.
However, the SEM uses electrons, not light, to build up an image on the
computer, so I had to learn how to use digital software to add the colour back
in. This opened up a whole area of
research into what colour was and how it was perceived – how were colours
changed when they were placed together in various combinations? How were
colours changed when they were seen from various distances? In what way are
colours dependent on the size of the coloured surface?
In order to translate these concepts into textiles, I needed
to explore a new technique of printing with dye called ‘chemical resist’. This technique works on the principle that if
you print two different classes of dye onto the same fabric, one will repel the
other so that full colour designs can be printed, without the tedious and
sometimes impossible method of colour separation that is used in
screen-printing. By mastering this
technique I could then fully explore the questions I posed by working with
complimentary contrasts without the fear of my colours turning ‘muddy’. Most of
us know that if we put complimentary contrasting colours together (for example
red +green; blue+ orange or yellow + purple) you will get hues of brown, grey
or black. With this new technique I could print these colours together and
still retain their integrity.
The fabrics I have printed for ‘Chromophilia’ are the
results of my research. Images and
shapes are derived from observations of cells and bacteria under the
microscope, and then juxtaposition of scale and motif are played out in the
pairs of narrow fabric lengths. The larger, more complex cloths use a variety
of these marks and motifs, building up heavily coloured and patterned
textiles. I liken this process to that
of DNA transference in living things – some motifs and colours appear dominant,
whilst others are recessive. The
combinations of colours in different proportions impart tension within the
artwork, which can then be further enhanced or denied by the form it inhabits.
I have further exploited these concepts by embellishing textiles with stitch
and buttons, bound by embroidery hoops as a framing device to infer the process
of looking through a microscope and observing form, scale and repetition.
No comments:
Post a Comment