Canion II, 1975

ZOFIA BUTRYMOWICZ

 

EUR 30,000 + VAT

 

Canion II, 1975

 

Cotton

215 x 269 cm

 

About this work

 

The chromatic transitions of ‘Canion II’ have a formal appeal separately from the title, but they also make sense as a ‘canyon’, from which we are looking up at the soaring, tree-topped sides of a rocky valley coloured, perhaps, by a setting sun. And, reading its material substance more literally, we might also see this as a historic piece of clothing: a ‘canion’ was a tubular downward extension – covering the knees – to the bag-like breeches typically worn by men in the 16-17th centuries.

ZOFIA BUTRYMOWICZ BIOGRAPHY

Zofia Butrymowicz (Poland, 1904-87) saw herself as an innovator who was interested in new experiments in art ‘whether I agree with them or not’. That spirit led to her emergence as one of the pioneering East European textile artists who developed ‘loom thinking’ during the 1960’s: working directly on a loom without a prepared cartoon. That allows the process of weaving to feed directly into the formation of tapestries, in her case suggesting abstracted landscapes in which the layering of threads evokes geological strata and gradations in the distance.