UTILITY: Foray into chromatic zones

A free exhibition at the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre has opened up late February to show the latest work of artist Sheila Hicks. The exhibition is Sheila’s very first solo show in the UK.

She is renowned for blurring boundaries between textile tradition, art and design and architecture and became within the past five decades the most influencial artist in contemporary art who works with supple materials.

The exhibition also features a selection of Hicks’ fibre-based calligraphic drawings and visitors can also interact with recent large scale-works.

With this exhibiton going on until April 19th, we thought of more artists who used fabrics and supptle material to create art such as Nick Cave.  Cave is working between the visual and performing arts through a rwide range of mediums including installation, sculptures and perfomances. In his book ‘Meet me at the Center of the Earth’ he shows us works of sculptures that have a bizarre quality. They are living sculptures used in movement and dance made out of differrent fabrics.

Watch this little short film about Nick’s project “Art in Motion” to get a sense of what he’s doing:

Other artists worth mentioning when talking about fabrics are  Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz. The duo initially met while working at the same studio and continued as a partnership after doing a successful collaborative piece more than a decade ago. They’ve exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in 2010 with of their pieces called ‘Nine’ – an installation depicting nine figures standing in a circle piled up with clothes. 

Inspired by all this you should definitely come down this month to see “Foray into chromatic zones”. For more information please visit Hayward Gallery’s webpage here.

Also check out the new book ‘The Pattern Sourcebook: A Century of Surface’ by Drusilla Cole – published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd. The selected designs in the book draw on a wide variety of styles, art movements and countriesof origin to give an overview of surface design.

Click on the link above to safe yourself a copy.