Fabric Collages

This set of collages revolves around the idea of using fabrics, threads, laces, paper and other related materials to express certain feelings and ideas that have engaged my imagination and skills for quite a while now.  Being a sewer, I am naturally attracted to various kinds of textiles and fibers because of their inherent sensuous qualities – their colors, designs, textures and the way they hang or drape around figures.  I have found a way of reinventing their appearances by sewing over the surfaces countless times. In most of the collages, I was inspired by marine life, by the denizens of a truly magical world –the coral reefs. Photographs and aquarium displays in museums of them have always riveted me.  But seeing them in tropical waters in my native country years ago brought an even more acute sense of wonder at and fascination with these beautiful creatures. I was especially impressed by the color intensity and luminescence, as well as the unusual shapes of some animals. Most of my collages are imaginative reconfigurations of these life forms and also of their energies, their movements. Playfully creating ambiguous and suggestive shapes is more challenging and enjoyable for me.