Fiber Art in Beauty in All Things

December 20th, 2011 at 08:00am Erica

Perhaps the most exciting area of Japanese design today is Fiber Arts, mixing traditional weaving techniques with skilled innovation and imagination. The textile works on view at MAD’s Beauty in All Things display this contemporary energy and vigor.

Calling himself a textile engineer, Jun’ichi Arai has pioneered several ‘abusive’ treatments for fabric that incorporate machine and chemical processes into the creation and treatment of his textiles. As a result, Arai is able to produce dynamic and intriguing examples of fiber art, such as his Reversible Metallic Scarf. This piece displays evidence of the artist’s shibori technique of binding and using heat-set techniques to create a multi-colored ‘starburst’ pattern along the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masakazu Kobayashi is another artist who uses textiles in unconventional ways. Many of his works appear to be abstracted landscape ‘paintings’ of fiber, executed with a quintessentially Japanese refined sensibility. Just look at Hills of Kyoto, which shows gently sloping curves set flat against the surface of the silk in a patterned format. The rhythmic beauty of this piece exemplifies Kobayahi’s artistic goal to express, “the tranquility of nature, the infinity of the universe and the Japanese spirit.” Kobayashi, who works with his wife, Naomi Kobayashi, chose to work with fiber because of a belief in the material’s ‘integrity.’

Lastly is Junco Sato Pollack, whose geometric hanging ‘scrolls’ of textiles show a mastery of contemporary fiber technique. In Cascade, the artist was inspired by the mountainous landscapes she had seen on her travels throughoutAmerica. The three hanging swathes of fabric are made of gold leaf on silk, created through a process of heat compression, which binds colors and materials to the surface of the fabric and gives it a unique texture. This intriguing mixture of nature and science is at the core of Pollack’s aesthetic mission, and can be seen in its glory in MAD’s gallery space.

Entry Filed under: beauty in all things