Portfolio > Chromatopia 1-6: the color of place

Chromatopia 3
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 43" x w 54" d 3"
Chromatopia 4
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 57" x w 25" x d 3"
Chromatopia 2
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 53" x w 39" x d 3"
Chromatopia 5
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 53" x w 23" x d 3"
Chromatopia 1
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 53" x w 45" x d 3"
Chromatopia 6
plant dyed fabric remnants
h 56" x w 31" x d 3"

Chromatopia, meaning ‘the color of place’, is a series of six works expressing ways color and place map our lives. I created them by repurposing plant dyed cotton remnants from my Collected Colors Collected Color series, as well as other plant based dye projects. Botanical colors vibrate across time and place because they are derived from the landscape and their colors are imprinted onto the cloth, leaving serendipitous marks, mapping various geographic locations.

The structural integrity of the Chromatopia compositions is supported solely by the tension of the over-under-over formation of the hand woven strips. The process began by constructing large panels of 4-6 layers of dyed fabrics that were then punctured with tiny threadless holes. The panels were then cut into strips as I intuitively focused on the negative and positive space of each piece and how the palette of colors overlapped, revealing and concealing information. These compositions remind me of latitude and
longitude lines or a disintegrating grid system.