Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.
Transcript:
Through turning, knotting, binding, and sewing assorted fabrics, Sonia Gomes creates abstract organic forms, such as this work from her "Torções (Twistings)" series. "Untitled", made in 2009, is a work composed of organic and synthetic fabrics and fibers on metal. Overall, its dimensions are three feet tall by eight feet wide, and it reaches two feet out from the gallery wall. It twists organically, evoking the shape of branches. One strand at the center of the work splits into a Y shape to the left and right. The diverging branches loop away from and back toward the wall, diverging and converging at other intersections. At the left and right sides of the work, the twisting branches converge again, forming curved edges so that the entire piece appears almost like an infinity sign from afar.
The metal form is entirely covered with wrapped fabric and tied or sewn with thread, like makeshift bandages. Each fabric section is a few inches to a foot long, some thinly wrapped and others bulging. The snaking form is a vibrant sight with a wide variety of textures and colors, including, for example: pink embroidery thread knotted over bright-blue fabric; deep-purple fabric sewn with yellow thread; patterned fabrics; shimmery gold fabric; heavy twine; white lace; a yellow ribbon patterned with blue, green, and white stars wrapping over and around multiple fabrics and disappearing into a fold between two fabrics. Everything feels bound and sewn with care.
Raised in Caetanópolis, a major textile-manufacturing center in Minas Gerais in Brazil, Gomes uses discarded material to build her expressive and distinctive configurations. Incorporating donated or found clothing imbued with what the artist describes as “the patina of time,” Gomes gives new meaning and memories to these otherwise abandoned articles, transforming specific histories in “an act of restoration and resistance.” A self-taught artist who did not receive wide recognition until the 2010s, Gomes probes issues of memory, racial and cultural identity, and traditional craft in her sculptures and installations. In particular, those associated with the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition Candomblé, imparted by her maternal grandmother. By adapting domestic materials and crafts, Gomes reclaims endeavors typically dismissed from fine art as the pursuit of women, and blurs the boundaries between art and handicraft.
Multiple elements of this work invite and draw us in: the bright colors of the fabric, the tactility and familiarity of the material, the sewn and knotted details, and its large scale projecting out toward us.
