Untitled IIV: Gully in the Mountains

by Jacqueline Surdell
 
 
 
 
 
 

2019

tapestry made of 182,88 cm of steel rod

152 x 168 x 25 cm

Untitled Series employs cotton cords of varying sizes and consistencies, woven and tied together with distinct rectangular configurations. The suppleness and porousness of the cotton rope is self consciously without form or saturated color – an anti- painting. With these works I reimagine the woven canvas as a space of undulation and growth — employing my body as a weaving shuttle, and my hand as brushstroke. My work revels in the janus-faced unity of the expanded histories of painting with the irreverent saga of craft — challenging the internalized and gendered rules we use to give each meaning. While the rectangular shape and title reference the frame of modernist painting, in this case, I replace painting’s grand gestures and bright colors with obsessively knotted and woven rope as my “mark making” technique.

Untitled: Gully in the Mountains:

A gully is a landform created by running water, eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Jacqueline is exploring new ways to think about landscape as a genre. The composition of this work, specifically, is based on a collage technique combining topographical illustrations of places where water has eroded land in the continental US. The work seeks to think through the patient and flexible power of water as a model for human interaction with the same land. A thoughtful give and take. Like the power of water to erode over an extended period of time, my process embraces small movements, layers, and wrapping to create form. It is through patient accretion — tiny moments and movements building up over time — that the works come to fruition.

Sold


About the artist

Jacqueline Surdell

Jacqueline Surdell was born and raised in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA in Fibre and Material Studies from the […]

Read more about Jacqueline Surdell


Featured in exhibition