Canadian Klansman woven by Barbara HellerBarbara Heller is a remarkable contemporary tapestry artist and a master weaver.
Her technically accomplished work is intricate and emotionally challenging. She takes on any topic and leaves you raw in consideration.
Heller has woven scenes containing images of French Legionaires in full desert gear, Ku Klux Klan members in regalia, and toxic clean up workers entering environmental hell. All done in beautiful colour combinations with traditional tapestry weaving. Nothing, however, is traditional about her subject matter.
Sometimes this work challenges and contradicts her personal experience as a person of Jewish tradition and faith. The Barbara Heller I have encountered is a soft spoken and committed person. Her movements are delicate like her work but she is substantial enough to have raised her children and cared for an ill and elderly parent. She almost blends into the shadowed backgrounds of her work but jumps out at you at just the right moment.
I have watched as Heller's work has matured and reflected her deep and complex inner world. It has progressed from reflectons of memory and myth to dreams. She now capably reflects the conflicts and conversation needed for our troubled world.
Barbara Heller's work is being shown at the Elliot Louis Gallery in Vancouver during May. The website showing Heller's work is http://www.gallery@elliotlouis.com/
Her technically accomplished work is intricate and emotionally challenging. She takes on any topic and leaves you raw in consideration.
Heller has woven scenes containing images of French Legionaires in full desert gear, Ku Klux Klan members in regalia, and toxic clean up workers entering environmental hell. All done in beautiful colour combinations with traditional tapestry weaving. Nothing, however, is traditional about her subject matter.
Sometimes this work challenges and contradicts her personal experience as a person of Jewish tradition and faith. The Barbara Heller I have encountered is a soft spoken and committed person. Her movements are delicate like her work but she is substantial enough to have raised her children and cared for an ill and elderly parent. She almost blends into the shadowed backgrounds of her work but jumps out at you at just the right moment.
I have watched as Heller's work has matured and reflected her deep and complex inner world. It has progressed from reflectons of memory and myth to dreams. She now capably reflects the conflicts and conversation needed for our troubled world.
Barbara Heller's work is being shown at the Elliot Louis Gallery in Vancouver during May. The website showing Heller's work is http://www.gallery@elliotlouis.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment