Form: Katuata
crossing the river
to an ancient civil war
the dictator born
©JGFarmer2021
Katuata
Day: April 18, 2021
Mother and Child
Media: Pencil on card
©JGFarmer2018
Elementary Forms by Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Elementary Forms
1917
Constructivism
Embroidery
Elementary Forms was made to hang on a wall, unlike most other textile at the time. By treating embroidery like a painting Taeuber-Arp attempted to erode the ideas of what materials could be used to create art. The weft changes how the viewer sees the embroidery, forcing the consideration of texture and the implication of the hand that made it. Taeuber-Arp’s radical notions of non-representational art apply the tenets of colour and form to traditional women’s work. She is unexpectedly empowered by the traditional gender roles in an avant-garde pursuit.
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Dada, Constructivism, Performance Art, Readymade and The Found Object
Born: 19 January 1889, Davos, Switzerland
Nationality: Swiss
Died: 13 January 1943, Zurich, Switzerland
A prominent figure in many of the important European art scene of pre-World War II, Taeuber-Arp was one of the most active figures around the Café Voltaire in Zurich. She dedicated her career to the break down of static, artificial boundaries between genres and forms, and celebrating creative energy such liberation released. Her work attempted to destabilize the traditional norms in art and society, questioning the fixed ideas f gender, class, and nationality. For Taeuber-Arp art was both political and integrated into everyday life. She embraced the principles of Constructivism, and was its most important practitioner outside of Russia.
Dalet Kaf by Morris Louis
Dalet Kaf
1959
Color Field Painting
Acrylic resin on canvas
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Dalet Kaf is an example of Louis’ Veil paintings. Due to the confines of his studio, Louis stapled canvas to the walls and in Dalet Kaf the sheer washes of paint cascade down the canvas surface, the brighter colours muted by the veils of black that frame the composition. An inventive technique enlisting gravity as one of the artistic tools as it aided and shaped the flow of paint. Louis emphasized the medium’s fluidity rather than his own artistic authority over it. The paint itself becoming the subject of the work.
Morris Louis
Color Field Painting, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Washington Color School
Born: 28 November 1912, Maryland, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 7 September 1962, Washington DC, USA
Louis was one of the leading artists in Colour Field painting, along with his contemporaries Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler. In a short prolific career Louis continually experimented with method and medium, manipulating large canvases in creative wats to control the flow and stain of paint. His maturity of style, characterized by layered veils and rivulets of poured acrylic paint on untreated canvases, make his paintings among the most iconic works of Colour Field painting
Jezzie G 