WEST DEAN TAPESTRY STUDIO WEAVE FOUR TRACEY EMIN’S FOR NEW EXHIBITION, THE VANISHING LAKE
As part of Tracey Emin's exhibition The Vanishing Lake, three tapestries woven by the West Dean Tapestry Studio are being shown - the fourth was exhibited at Frieze, Regents Park, London, 13 - 16 October 2011. The Vanishing Lake has been curated by White Cube gallery.
This commission follows on the success of Tracey Emin’s and West Dean Tapestry Studio’s first tapestry of Emin’s painting Black Cat (2008) which was shown in May 2011 at the Craft Council’s Collect exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery.
The four new tapestries are of the following paintings by Tracey Emin:
Keeping You in Mind
In the Dark
Rose Virgin
Thankyou
The tapestries are approximately six times larger than the original works.
The team of weavers at West Dean, led by Studio Director Caron Penney, include Philip Sanderson (Creative Director), Katharine Swailes (Senior Weaver) and Jo Howard (Weaver).
“What has been captivating about this project,’ says Caron Penney, ‘is the juxtaposition between the ancient craft of tapestry weaving where the process has remained largely unchanged for centuries – and the emotional and sensual subject matter of the paintings. You can see the influence of the expressionist artists such as Munch and Schiele in these works, which has been amplified by the change of scale.”
Penney goes on to say, “there is an incredible lightness and delicacy within the many layers of the paintings. We have used cotton and linen to convey the light transparency and wool to suggest the subtle shades of colour. The opportunity to work with Tracey for the second time this year has been a career highlight.”
Tracey Emin: “West Dean work in the most traditional way and it totally lent itself to my images. They are incredibly sympathetic and intuitive and understanding towards the colours and forms in my work.”
West Dean’s weavers employ the traditional techniques to create each unique tapestry.The weavers were assigned the paintings to mirror their individual strengths and experience as professional tapestry weavers.
Katharine Swailes adds “Rose Virgin is the first Tracey Emin painting I have woven. The mark making and subtlety of tone has been both a challenge and a delight, sitting at a polar opposite to the historical interpretations for Stirling Castle that I have been working on for the past ten years.”
The Vanishing Lake
curated by White Cube gallery
6 Fitzroy Square
London W1T 5DX
7 October - 12 November (Closed 19 -23 October)
Open Wednesday – Sunday 10am-6pm
The tapestries are for sale through White Cube
