Mar 2nd, 2021 • 5 minute read
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Curations with Jordan Holms: Fabric Matters
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Fabric has taken on a significant role in material culture throughout history and across many different places around the world. Not surprisingly then, in art, the inclusion of fabrics and various kinds of textiles and other fibrous materials is inescapable. This week’s curation looks at how artists use other mediums such as drawing, painting, photography and sculpture to explore the material and conceptual possibilities of fabric.
Deterioration
This striking photograph by artist Tal Ben Avi is at once opulent and in decay. It features a shabby Pepto Bismol pink couch, seemingly abandoned, though the composition is cropped too tightly to glean the location of the object. Despite its weathered state, the sun hits the couch in such a way that it radiates color. Its brilliance is unspoiled by the ragged bottom edge, which has clearly endured years of desecration by some animal. This object has a cryptic history, told through the deterioration of fabric.
Texture
This intimate collage by artist Leigh Wells is a subtle articulation of the power of textiles. While none of the materials used are literally fabric, the implication lingers within the repetition of drapery and the pleated curvatures of the collage elements. A stark yellow rectangle anchors these more languid aspects to the vintage paper and creates a sense of balance amongst them. Even in the absence of actual fabrics the varied textures in this composition communicate a sensual, tactile quality.
Curtains
This small, oil pastel drawing by Igor Sokol is haunting. There’s a surreal quality to this work, with its frameless curtains and hollow building. Replete with animation and rich textures, I can feel the boundless curtains blowing is a soft gust of wind, the facade of the building under my fingertips. My urge to fit the curtains and the building together is untenable, like a puzzle, I know these pieces match, yet I cannot achieve the satisfaction of putting them together.
Gingham
This work by artist Jodi Hays, titled Sayer, explores the potential of textiles, as it relates to painting, much more explicitly than some of the other works in this curation. In place of canvas, a swath of pink gingham is stretched over the frame. It is folded over like a picnic table cloth flapping in the wind. Indications of former uses for this fabric are evidenced in the curved seam in the bottom right hand corner. A broad stroke of transparent white paint stretches across the top third of the composition. This work is at once an abstracted examination of materials, as well as symbolic of whimsical cultural touchstones.
Quilting
This work by Scott Idleman, titled Half Square, features an array of triangular collage pieces made from original drawings, then arranged into a quilt-like composition. The “half square” is used as a foundational element in many traditional quilting techniques. Here, Idleman translates the methodologies of quilting into the mediums of collage and drawing. Inspired by a family history of quilters and their intricate patterns, this work lays bare the slippage between artistic mediums, endeavouring to disrupt material and hierarchical distinctions.
Carpeting
This oil painting by artist Katie Curry takes on the form of a geometric carpet. As though I am observing it from above, I absorb the composition as a whole, seeing every line, color, and form at once. It is viscous and textured, I want to lie down on top of it and run my fingers across its surface like I would a rug. In the painting, each mark is intentional and essential to the whole. Using one medium, the artist transports the viewer into an experience with an entirely material.
Weaving
This work by Molly Koehn embraces an eclectic fusing of materials. Titled about the weather 02 this work uses hand-woven stainless steel, linen, silk, and nylon, inkjet print on paper, and nails on panel. Weaving is the central methodology of this piece. The swath of woven textile casts a grand shadow across the composition, acting as a tactile expansion of the grid to which it is affixed. The artist states that for her, weaving is her way of responding to the built environment. About the work Koehn writes, “Loose threads extend like grass growing in concrete cracks. Minimal forms constructed line by line harken to modern architecture. Neon threads glare like construction signs while subtle colors nod to the skies.”
Illusion
This sculpture by Raymond Padron, titled Dad Hat, is another stellar example of marrying seemingly disparate materials. To produce this work the artist digitally scanned a ball cap, created a wood sculpture of the compressed hat using a CNC mill, and then hand-finished the work with milk paint. In a photograph, the work has an illusionistic quality that makes it appear to be made from fabric rather than wood. The mediated nature of the various mediums used in the process (textiles, photography, wood-working, painting) illustrates the mutability of materials.
Virtual installations courtesy of ArtPlacer
About Jordan Holms
Jordan Holms is an interdisciplinary artist who works primarily in painting, sculpture, and textiles. Her work examines how space is materialized, organized, and made to mean. She has exhibited internationally in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada and her work is held in multiple private collections. In addition to a solo exhibition at Marrow Gallery, her paintings have been included in a group show at SFMoMA Artists Gallery, a number of MFA survey exhibitions, featured at BAMPFA, and in Adidas’s San Francisco Market Street storefront. Most recently, Holms was a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant, where she was an artist-in-residence in February 2020. She is also a 2016-2019 recipient of the San Francisco Art Institute’s Graduate Fellowship Award. She earned a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2019, where she graduated with honors. Holms lives and works in San Francisco, California.