Shining Tapestry

September 7–October 13, 2018
Aceartinc., Winnipeg

Made over an eleven-year period, the work in Shining Tapestry spans textiles, text, photography and digital media, combining these in varied attempts to visualize lived experiences of trauma.
Language and image, base units of conscious thought, break down in flawed processes of articulation and translation. Artifacts of these processes—warping, loss of resolution, garbled syntax and mixed metaphor—mimic deficits of consciousness brought on by intense emotion, illness or impairment.
The show is anchored by a new body of large-scale crochet lace “documents” based on digitally-mangled, low-resolution photographs and improvised text. Alongside works in a range of media, these aim to highlight and destabilize the precarious mental structures that give subjective experience its illusion of continuity and order.
– Exhibition text

Installation views

photos by karen asher

Works

Melech House, where mom died (2017–18) Crocheted cotton thread, 84” x 56”. — ***Melech House, where mom died*** (2017–18)
Crocheted cotton thread, 84” x 56”.

A closeup of a large crocheted lace textile, mounted on black fabric and framed, hanging on a white gallery wall. The piece comprises a single ribbon of crocheted text that reads from left to right, then turns 180° at the end of the line, with the t…

Famine Stela (2015–16)
Crocheted cotton thread. 50” x 68” framed.

Black hour one, two, three and four (Blackout, streetlight) (2017)
Crocheted cotton thread, RGB LED light boxes. 42 x 28" each.

Seneca Lake dusk (Blue screen, blackout) (2016-18)
Crocheted cotton thread, LED RGB light box. 42 x 28".

Collar, wreath, sclera, cenote (Mom)
Collar, wreath, sclera, cenote (Koko)
(2018, unfinished)
Crocheted cotton thread (filet and Irish crochet), pins. 20” x 20” framed each.

Closeup view of artworks on a black wood-veneer tabletop, with additional artworks hanging on the wall. On the left half of the table is an older MacBook pro laptop connected with a VGA cable to an older-model Dell flatscreen LCD monitor. The laptop…

Untitled (Black Hours) (2014)
Silver gelatine prints from laser-printed negatives.

Game of Life (Seneca Lake dusk, blue screen) (2015)
digital animation. Link to interactive version.

Untitled (Someone to watch over me) (2013)
Engraved plastic signs

Installation view. In the foreground, on a black wood-veneer tabletop, an older MacBook Pro laptop is connected with a VGA cable to a CRT computer monitor. On each screen is a highly-pixelated image of tree branches that seem to be “growing,” and ar…

Game of Life (Black hours, amber monochrome) (2015)
Digital animation. Link to interactive version.

A closeup view of artworks hanging on a wall, a second set of aluminum panels and plastic signs, the same sizes and hung in the same configuration as in the previous image.The image on the left panel is a digital drawing resembling a square piece of…

Reconstructed meshes and down-sampled bitmaps (2015)
Dye sublimation prints on aluminum and engraved plastic signs.
Text quoted from Elizabeth Parker’s sampler (after 1830).

A closeup view of a flat, white and highly-textured, rectangular object on a black background; a crocheted afghan blanket covered in layers of plaster-like white gesso. The outlines of individual granny square motifs are faintly visible through laye…

Blanket, to blanket (2007–08)
Crocheted cotton afghan, chalk ground (rabbit skin glue and marble dust, titanium dioxide pigment)

A closeup view of three tiles, each made of white marble, hanging in a row on a white wall. The left tile is unpainted; the centre tile is tinted a pale yellow, and the rightmost tile is a deep yellow-orange. Each tile is 8 inches by 12 inches, orie…

Untitled (Jaundice) (2008)
Indian yellow oil colour on marble, artist frames. 8” x 12” each.

Shining Tapestry