Helene Davis and Hand Dyed Artwork

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain.

Probably the most fundamental and guiding principal that colours, literally, the work of textile artist Helene Davis is that of her passion for hand-dyed fabric. Davis, after using bought quilting fabrics for a number of years, moved into the process of hand-dying her own fabrics, making each quilting project a much more personal and individual process.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain (detail).

Hand-dying is an exciting but often less than accurate medium in which to work. It takes a lot of skill, time, and patience in order to arrive at a range of fabrics in colour-ways, tones, and scale that can easily be worked with. The fact that the images shown in this article have arrived at that point, is easily evident. Davis is in control of the medium from start to finish. By producing her own dyed fabrics, she is able to forge a link between colour and texture that is both personal and individual, something that can never be truly said for bought fabric.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Flight to the Future.

The abstract process and the compositional layout allows the artist free reign over colour balances, textural juxtapositions, and tonal harmonies that seem effortless to the viewer, but are obviously hard to produce creatively without appearing indistinct and in many ways incomplete.

Davis is well aware that her coloured and textured fabrics have to balance compositionally, optically, and even emotionally. Each of these compositions has areas that are cut up into smaller sections of light and dark, placed next to areas where the dyed fabric is allowed to expand over much larger sections of the work. This carefully balanced juxtaposition helps to break up the colours and textures and allow the eye to roam over the composition, picking out small sections and details of interest.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Infrared.

Close ups of Davis work show that the stitch-making is also part of the process, as it is in many art quilts. However, by looking at a close up detail of Black Rain for example, it can be seen that the artist has also added a whole section of beading work as part of the textural and tonal process. This added mark-making process produces yet another layer of textural quality to the piece, allowing the work to be seen from a distance or close up, producing a different quality and experience every time.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Nexus.

These abstract pieces of artwork have been created by using a number of the processes found within the hand-dying craft and that of quilting. However, the way they are re-used and re-combined allows the artist to produce an extraordinarily tactile and sensory experience of colour, texture, and tone. Each piece is a balanced use of these processes, and one that cannot be re-conceived or re-connected after its creation.

Illustration: Helene Davis. World Upside Down.

The work of Helene Davis can be found on a number of sites on the Internet. Some of her work can be seen here. There is also a site, which can be found here, where many more of her hand-dyed fabrics can be seen.

All images are used with the kind permission of the artist.

The Abstract Finesse of Textile Artist Marion Coleman

Illustration: Marion Coleman. Untitled, 2007.

These four abstract textile art pieces by Marion Coleman, are all linked through a series of commonalities, colour, texture, and pattern. However, probably the most obvious and noticeable link is that of her use of patterned textiles. In these particular pieces, she uses a mixture of locally American sourced textiles and perhaps more importantly, a generous supply of African sourced textiles. It is the use of the decorative and mark-making capabilities of these specific African cotton fabrics that allow the abstract compositions to be so successful.

The power of decoration within an abstract setting could be classed as counter to the ideas of abstraction itself, but in reality, these repeated decorative patterns become all the more powerful because of their relationship with, and their dependence on each other. The sense of balance between the differing qualities of the fabrics, whether that be through size, texture, colour, or tone, are all placed within the composition to both balance and complement.

Illustration: Marion Coleman. When Leaves Do Fall, 2007.

Coleman is an expert in this field and her compositions appear effortless, which is to deny the difficult and often complex task of the distribution of fabrics, many of which can often fight and clash with each other. Abstract quilting can, in many respects, be one of the hardest forms of quilting in which to achieve a satisfactory result. There are few rules or frameworks to work within and compositions are largely left to the skill of the artist.

The more you study these abstract Coleman pieces, the more you can understand about the balances, compromises and relationships that she has forged with both fabric, colour and decoration. The result she has achieved appears effortless, which is as it should be. However, the result cannot disguise the intrinsic creativity and inbuilt compositional quality of the artist.

 Illustration: Marion Coleman. Serengeti 2, 2005.

Coleman's work forges a link between textiles and fine art painting. It is often hard for textile artists to achieve any standing outside their immediate medium. However, through these pieces and particularly that of her more immediate and relevant textile work concerning the profound social and cultural changes within her own African American community, she has been able to tap into an element of relevance and significance that sometimes only fine art can achieve. That she has been able to achieve this through textiles is an achievement in itself.

Marion Coleman has exhibited her work extensively across the US and into Europe. Her work has also been featured in a number of publications and she has a number of awards to her name. She has a comprehensive website which can be found here, where much more of her work can be seen other than the abstract pieces I have featured. Also of interest is the fact that she has a regularly updated blog By a Thread, which can be viewed here.

Illustration: Marion Coleman. Crimson In The Mist, 2005.

All images are shown with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Marion Coleman website

Marion Coleman blog

The Perceptive Visions of Textile Artist Denise Linet

Illustration: Denise Linet. Random Ascent, 2009.

The work of textile artist Denise Linet resembles that of a complex assemblage of different mediums, experiences, and observations. Linet's work incorporates a whole host of printing processes from straightforward dying and painting to the much more complex and accomplished process of the transference of photographic imagery. These processes give the artist a wide range of surface textures and mark making capabilities in which to build up her compositions.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Pond's Edge, 2009.

It is the very nature of the relationship between the layers and processes, which are such an integral part of her work that seem to so intrigue Linet. These are not random juxtapositions, but are that of a complex visualization of a particular point in space. The artist has taken a moment in time, sometimes at a particular setting or personal experience, which is then interpreted in a number of textile mediums. These separate and often partial experiences and interpretations are then built up to create a complex assemblage, to recreate the overall sensory and emotional experience of that particular point for the artist.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Meadow with Flowers, 2009.

This is an intriguing concept and interpretation of the human idea of seeing and experiencing. None of us can truly visualize or experience completely and wholly at one viewing. We view a point in space and then unconsciously interpret that point using a number of different values and emotions, which are then pieced together in order for us to appreciate what we think we experience as a whole. Linet has reproduced that process of our inbuilt evaluation of time and place in her complex and multi faceted compositions. This is how we truly see the world, as a deeply rich and complex series of visual and sensory perceptions that build up through layers, juxtapositions, and relationships, in order to produce the final imagery that is our memory.

 Illustration: Denise Linet. Fantasy Garden, 2009.

She intrinsically seems to understand the complex multi-faceted visual and emotional parameters of our experiences with the landscape, each other and of ourselves. Through her work, Linet is able to give us an inkling of our own complexity and for that, we must be truly grateful.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Squam Lake - Early Autumn, 2008.

Denise Linet has exhibited her work extensively across the US since the mid-1990s. She has her own website, with more of her work on show, which can be found below.

All images are shown with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Denise Linet website

Pat Dolan and the Juxtapositions of Life

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Earth Cells.

The organically inspired textile artwork of Pat Dolan can be viewed as both a reflection of the macro or micro cosmos that we live both with and inside. Dolan in fact shows us a world that we cannot see with our own eyes and very often find hard to perceive. It is a world of building blocks, an organically derived series of balances and relationships between near likenesses and complete opposites. This tension between opposite and similitude would seem to be a recipe for constant tension within the natural world, but this complex series of relationships creates an organism that gains strength through the variety of opposites, negatives and similarity groupings.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Earth Cells (detail).

This complex relationship is cleverly highlighted by Dolan in her work. She often uses very close juxtapositions; in fact a series of strained partnerships would be a closer analogy, between the light and the dark, the soft and the hard and the smooth and the rough. By building up a variety of textural layering she highlights the strange but often fruitful harmony that can be created from a complex mixture of textures, colour tones and scale.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Going in Circles.

Without viewing the titles of Dolans' compositions, and therefore having foreknowledge of their narrative, we are unaware of whether we are viewing a blood cell or a galaxy, in other words the micro or the macro world. This is indeed as it should be, as the two seem indistinguishable to the human eye and mind, apart from scale. Both seem to use the same building blocks of strained and compatible relationships and Dolan through her compositions shows us that the relationship of harmony that she wishes to highlight for us is very nearly a universal norm.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Black & White Cells.

Dolan's work is both intriguing and satisfying. She shows us a complex multi faceted world that is full of contradictions, juxtapositions and uncomfortable relationships between opposites, but she also shows us a world that works well and that is the stronger because of the complexity of textures that goes to make up its structure. This template of complex but ultimately successful series of relationships that goes into making up the building blocks of life can be seen as an analogy of our own lives and our complexity when dealing with those around us. Whether we deal successfully with our lives and those of others seems to depend on whether we deal with the juxtapositions that life throws at us, in a harmonious way or not.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Gone to Seed.

Pat Dolan trained as a fine artist and discovered the potential liberation of textile art and never looked back. Her work has been highlighted in a number of publications and she has exhibited across the US. She has her own comprehensive website where more of her work can be viewed. Her website can be found here. She also has a regularly updated blog which can be found here.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Gone to Seed (detail).

All illustrations were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Pat Dolan website
Pat's Art Journal