Textiles : Dalliance series

Textiles are an exciting and fascinating medium to work with and Elemaria immediately saw their potential for transformation and freedom of technique using new and fresh approaches.

She likes being able to break convention by looking at things upside down, and using textiles involves the inverse – like negatives with photography.

I sometimes paint on the reverse side of the pieces and often around the edges in one or several stages, which can be likened to darkroom enhancement techniques.

I like to work in the sun, fixing and painting, and each time I work I discover more and more ways to incorporate new techniques which will compliment my work. The result is an intuitive and fluid process.

Review of New Works – Textile Paintings
Exhibition by Elemaria Cabral

18th February 2010
Onehunga Community Hall
Auckland, New Zealand

Elemaria Cabral allows you to distinguish your own reality (or fantasy) in her formless constructions in New Works – Textile Paintings’ three series: Dalliance, Broken Bones and Cerca. These textile paintings are the first in the world to utilise organic bamboo fabric, designed and produced in Onehunga, New Zealand. Made from the pulp of bamboo grass, the fabrics are harvested in such a way as to be sustainable, light and anti bacterial, forming a raw base for the artist’s vivid expressions.

The lively, exciting works in the Dalliance series tell of a life bursting with colour and passion, inspired by the artist’s time spent in New Zealand, Brazil, Tahiti and Mexico. Elemaria’s gestural movements of dyes sweep across the huge spans of fabric, uninhibited by structure. Deliberately neglecting form, Elemaria’s emotional works summon the energy and personal connection of the audience to challenge and inspire. They bring about histories of culture and voyages vast across the world, all attempting to attain inner peace and a sense of place. Elemaria’s story is one of change and new beginnings, which she addresses gracefully throughout the nine works in Dalliance.

Inspired by the deafening convergence of colour, sound and experience that is the flamboyant Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Elemaria’s works dance like revellers in love on the streets of her native Brazil. Smudgy royal blue flirts with emerald green, melting together in a sea of burnt sunset red in a fiery, passionate embrace. There’s a sense of excitement and bold new direction, the impact of which is felt long after seeing the work.

The utmost organic and honest expression comes through in the natural canvas on which these memories and feelings are recorded. Elemaria has transformed the simple, impersonal canvas into a living, breathing medium that plays perfect host to her touching and personal art.

The Dalliance series represents a raft of moments – some full of laughter and light, others darker times often expelled but never forgotten. Each tells the story of a brave and vulnerable woman coming to peace with her own history.

The Broken Bones series unearths a quiet majestic beauty in its bare minimalism and strong, directionless lines of silkscreen paint on 100% linen fabric. Figurative streaks border the fabric’s edge in browns and blacks, forming mazes. Similarly spacious, the Cerca series glows in bright amber, green and purple, fuller in application and courageous in its simplistic display. The versatile designs of the fabrics means they may be used for fashion constructs as well as more traditional displays.

Elemaria’s abstractions defy tradition. Their larger than life quality is neither daunting nor overt, but shows bold thinking and an even bolder approach by a forward-thinking artist whose past influences her thinking as much as her future.