The Textile Art of Narangkar Glover and Ako Castuera
November 2nd - December 22nd 2007
Details from Paint By Needle
In this split show both artists exhibit a series of new textiles that explore the concepts of using these traditional mediums to express their own currents of artistic practice and ideas. The artists combine their love for the needle arts to create elaborate, colorful, and very narrative work that is most characteristic of traditional and expressionist painting.
Narangkar's works literally combine crewel embroidery with paint to convey a cohesive personal narrative that cuts through the obvious paradox of using one medium to express another. A common thread in her work is the use of the figure and the self portrait, which is primarily expressed through very formal principles in modernist painting, yet allowing room for interdisciplinary exploration. Throughout her career, Narangkar has consistently used old fashioned art forms, from hand drawn animation shot on film and optically printed, to crewel embroidery, to an ongoing dedication to the institution of painting. Her work conveys, not only in the subject but also in the medium itself, a sense of belonging, a connection to humanity and ancestry, and a deep understanding of the profundity of making art: process, progress and narrative.
While saturated color is a running visual theme for the exhibit, Ako Castuera offers an entirely different beast. Castuera is a freelance illustrator from Los Angeles, and character artist for the animated TV program, ’ÄúMetalocalypse’Äù, which satisfies her blood-thirst for drawing monsters and unfortunate people. For Ako, knitting is a challenging and stimulating process that fuels her interest in craft and narrative. Structure and image are simultaneously created one stitch at a time using various traditional knitting techniques to create colorful woolen pictures that are largely freestyle and unplanned. They show the energy and unexpected decision making of one who is testing new waters, and reflect the artist's mythical view of everyday life, from glimpses of the suburbs (as familiar as knitting itself) to portraits of monsters you will NEVER see anywhere else.