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In
Kristine Fornes' Spring in Sight, two colorful budgerigars are each
sitting on a branch decorated with flowers, and it is as if one
can hear the birds chirping from the embroidered fabric. The details
of this very lifelike picture are intimately executed; the birds'
feathers are a vibrant yellow and variations in yellow and blue.
The ornithological study in small stitches is broken by a sketch-like
male figure with a mustache and whose arms are raised into the air.
Is he adjusting his glasses or simply covering his ears? He is situated
directly under the two branches, and the embroidered contours of
this frail and caricatured man changes the picture's almost rococo-like
representation into a cartoon-like slapstick .
This
picture, created on linen and cotton using print, hand embroidery,
and darning, is what characterizes Kristine Fornes. She focuses
on creating humorous narratives from everyday life by using stylistic
breaks in form and material. She introduces several techniques and
visual layering in a single picture - reality meets animation, photographic
printing meets time consuming needlework. In this respect, her approach
is collage based; the pictures become a joint meeting place between
different expressions. The result appears as independent, pictorial
narratives, both whimsical and secretive, and full of both internal
and external coding. From picture to picture, you become more confident
with the peculiar form of this universe; the charming odd features
are fundamentally appealing. It is not without reason that her work
is often referred to as "sophisticated graffiti". The
textiles become almost a readable text; literary stories in its
own linguistical form. The word "textile" is historically
associated with weaving. Fornes unites layer upon layer and thus
creating clean poetical and tactile transitions.
Kristine
Fornes is a classic treasure collector; she finds old textiles and
reuses them as artistic material. She uses old and torn rags and
darned textiles, inherited and found at flea markets. These old
textiles are tied to the craft's carefulness, emotion, and lost
slowness. An old silk fabric becomes a canvas for printed pictures,
drawings, and hand embroidery, and its maturity gives her work a
patina of faded warmth and suggestive history. Sometimes these fabrics
are heavily marked by the ravages of time; torn and almost decomposed.
Fornes transforms these pieces into ambiguous narratives, stories
that are emphasized in the use of such titles as Beauty Astray.
The conventional beauty shifts and is sent off course. She collects
her supply of pictures from various sources, such as arts and crafts
books, old magazines, and fashion magazines. The incorporation of
antiquated dresses and accessories in playful and awkward contexts
creates ties to surrealistic strategies, similar to that of Max
Ernst. His impressions of people and use of technical appliances
from the 1800's contribute to the story in his collages becoming
misplaced within contemporary settings; the story twists and confuses
the present time. As an element of style, these historical fragments
are beautifying, but their function remains uncertain. This collision
of different time layers can also be sensed with Kristine Fornes.
But it is perhaps first and foremost a sampler that identifies Fornes'
way of composing pictures. A sampler is an embroidered picture,
like a sample of fabric consisting of different embroidery techniques
and stitches - often in the form of a text. It places different
imagery collected from pattern books and other samplers within the
same frame. This impurity is reflected in Kristine Fornes' composition
of media. One can also imagine that the traditional use of a sampler
in raising girls during the 1800's plays a part here. At first glance,
Fornes' world of pictures appears to be well tied to a feminine,
innocent, and lightly perfumed world. But at times, this world is
pierced by several stylistic breaks. Hand-made embroidery as an
adaption of textile and thread requires a great deal of concentration.
This can historically be linked to discipline and structuring of
domestic life.
Kristine
Fornes orients herself in small scenes from everyday life, and she
creates a peculiar collection of people through stitch and drawing.
Stories about women are often a recurring theme in her pictures,
and several show unmarried women. One example is Dozy Rozy - Never
Married. In this picture, pieces of pink shaded fabric tie together
a female figure with wild curls dressed in an old-fashioned dress
and an image of a picture perfect marble cake. Rachel Taylor at
Yew Tree Cottage - Never Married features a woman with owls embroidered
on her dress. On the second half of the picture, there's an embroidered
house and hen and a print of a basket full of apples. The connection
between pastries and isolated women in outdated clothing with crinolines,
is a recurrent motif. The sweetness of the cream filled cake interacts
with these obscure female figures, who appear to be filling their
lives with decorative and kitchen related activities. There is something
bird-like about several of these women dressed in ruffles and pleats,
and this draws parallels to the generally frequent use of colorful
birds in Fornes' world of pictures. Many women have beak-like faces,
and it is as if they are aestheticized bird-women, lonely perhaps,
but also pictures of something eccentric and unique beyond formal
circumstances.
The
characters are surrounded with an open, white space, and its' textile
softness functions as a separation between times. These pictures
are from a different era, but the parallel use of transferred photography
and drawings pull these characteristics into our horizon in an interesting
and simultaneous manner. They are reactivated, and encourage a continuation
of the story. In some of the collage based group portraits, the
actual faces of the family members have been replaced by child-like
drawings of faces. The effect is both entertaining and unpleasant,
and it emphasizes Kristine Fornes' mastery of such superficial absurdity.
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