Contemporary Textile

“Contemporary Textile” spans a wide range of fiber art-based practices which include quilting, thread painting, lace-working, beading, and weaving. Weaving, and our basic understanding of loom, warp, and weft are stretched to cover such divergent applications as computer-generated Jacquard, tapestry, and even sculpture. Artists in this group exhibition challenge our conventional understanding of thread, fiber, cloth, and embroidery.

Characteristics of these fiber works are equally as varying, exploring opposing forces between the figurative and abstract, patterned and random, as well as formal and intuitive. While this medium speaks to a large audience, it is sometimes relegated to craft and even assigned a gendered stereotype. Like the humans who work with these practices, fiber and textile-based practices are non-binary.

“Contemporary Textile” features both contemporary artists along with several members of the Salina community who create quilts. In fact, quilting extends beyond many socioeconomic, language, and ethnic boundaries and are produced by both formally educated and self-taught practitioners.

[Image: Shawn Marie Delker, The Eye of the Storm, 2015. Thread painting]