“Pattern Women” is a series of my mixed media acrylic paintings of women where I use sewing pattern templates as the underlying support adhered to watercolor paper. In these works I bring a living quality to flat inanimate patterns by turning the original shapes into organic forms without the use of actual human figures. I create a literal transformation in which a sewing pattern for a sleeve becomes a leg; a leg becomes a torso and other template forms are transfigured into a variety of exploited images. My placement of the original templates along with the use of textural painting augments the works spatial qualities. I paint the surface with multiple layers of transparent and opaque acrylic washes and ink. This allows original sewing instructions to still be visible throughout the art work, providing a contradiction, a tension, between the directive of the printed words and the reality of the painted image.
Additional information about Donald’s concepts and techniques can be found at www.DonaldKolberg.com
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