Scalloway

Art

DePaul Art Museum

2017.07.A

Name/Title

Scalloway

Entry/Object ID

2017.07

Description

6 textiles with abstract color blocking with splattered textures, gray background

Artwork Details

Medium

pigment screen-printed on cloth

Context

"The images employed in this series of printed textile columns are from drawings I produced during a residency, 2013-14 on Shetland, an island off the north coast of Scotland. I found myself in awe of the bleak treeless landscape and the mounds of volcanic rock, which thrust from the sea, creating clusters of islands, perched close to the craggy coastline of Shetland. The drawings feature patches and strips of collage which reference rock strata, or serve to emphasize the verticality of the towering volcanic cliffs that cling to the perimeter of each island. Images were made equally from observation, memory and association, and are dependent on processes which encompass the unexpected. In addition to brush or pen I often drew with twigs of various sizes dipped into black ink. The resultant blunting of facility produced an inconsistent, fractured or broken line. Such unpredictability of effect is central to my aesthetic. I used screen-printing on cloth as a way to extrapolate these drawings, exploring forms worked out within the restrictions of the paper, on the more challenging dimension of the long and vertical. The printed cloths permit a dynamic shift in scale; each shape and mark appears monumental tightly framed by the selvage edge of the cloth. Some contain traces redolent of figural fragments, as though traces of Neolithic inhabitation were somehow fused within the lands geology. The images are forged through an open-ended practice of experiment and improvisation. Landscape and body act as metaphor, their meaning located somewhere in the interstices between figuration and abstraction. Images were drawn directly onto transparent paper or film then exposed by light to silk-screens and printed onto black and white cloth. Additional shapes were layered on top using a blank open screen and cut paper stencils. These analog processes reveal the urgency and immediacy of the drawings. The images printed on black cloth were limited to a monochromatic pallet, and on the white cloth, fields of saturated color were printed. The cloths are double sided sewing one black surface to a white. The lengths of fabrics were installed with the black side facing the viewer. As the viewer moves amongst and around the work, color reveals itself, declaring a return to a vibrant pallet not seen in my work for many years." - Fraser Taylor

Acquisition

Accession

2017.05-07

Source or Donor

Taylor, Fraser

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Gift of Fraser Taylor

Made/Created

Artist

Taylor, Fraser

Date made

2015

Ethnography

Notes

shetland Scotland UK

Lexicon

Getty AAT

Concept

abstraction, forms of expression (artistic concept), artistic concepts, banners, information artifacts, information forms (objects)

Hierarchy Name

Associated Concepts (hierarchy name), Information Forms (hierarchy name), Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name)

Facet

Associated Concepts Facet, Objects Facet

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Nature, Trees, Screen prints

Dimensions

Dimension Description

overall; 1 of 7

Width

21-3/4 in

Length

102 in