Echoes of land and sea
Textile art and fiber art are two fields of contemporary art that are still little known in Italy, where embroidery, weaving, quilting and crocheting are still considered "making" and "hobby", but are rarely seen as "proper art". This vision is quite different from what's going on in other countries, mainly UK, US, Australia, France, Russia and Scandinavian countries.
That's why the Open House at Counterweave Arts - a studio-gallery founded in Rome by Australian textile and mixed-media artist Felicity Griffin Clark, - which takes place on the 23rd of October during RAW 2018 is a rare event of contemporary art in Rome and is really worth visiting. This event is organized by Felicity Griffin Clark and Olga Teksheva (textile and fiber artist born in Moscow and based in Rome) and is curated by Velia Littera.
Felicity Griffin Clark has been working with textiles since 2005 and has exhibited in Australia, the UK, Italy, Germany, France, South Africa and the US. She uses a range of media and techniques to combine colours, textures and meanings in unconventional ways. She has a deep knowledge of traditional craft skills and uses them unexpectedly. Felicity likes people to be intrigued by her work: able to recognize elements (such as embroidery stitches) but surprised by the context, or by meaning of the work.
Olga Teksheva starts her artistic career in 2011 as an embroidery artist, working mainly in haute couture and contemporary embroidery, and also creating artistic textiles as wearable art. After a few fashion seasons she begins to perceive wearable art projects as "restricting", gradually passes to mixed-media art, transforming and "deforming" traditional techniques of textile manipulation. In 2017 she creates her first large-scale fiber installation, and since then develops more projects in this direction.
Both artists share passion for innovation in traditional craft skills, experimentation, surprise, elaborating precious, intrinsic textures. Both of them are interested in conveying deep emotions such as grief, memory, trauma and stigma; but also courage, resistance, hope and joy. The colours, rhythms and textures of landscapes and seascapes evoke and reflect these emotional states and can provide a key to working through them.
The opening of the show is on Tuesday, the 23rd of October 2018, from 5p.m. to 9 p.m.
Those visitors who would like to see the exhibition from the 24th to the 27th of October, can take an appointment with Felicity Griffin Clark on +39 347 72 05 869, or take online using the link https://calendly.com/felicity-griffinclark/counterweave-arts-gallery-workshop-appointment/10-24-2018
