MATTER, MATTER, OBJECT, WALL IS NOW ON DISPLAY IN THE 117 GALLERY. SEE THE EXHIBITION FROM NOW UNTIL JUNE 9.
BIO:
Never one for traditional paths, Nadège Roscoe-Rumjahn has followed a circuitous route throughout her education. With a background in architecture from McGill University, the opposing scale of contemporary jewelry drew her to Florence, Italy where she studied at Alchimia. She further explored drawing and installation, completing an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art. In love with all things textile, her work draws on intimate moments where the human body encounters cloth. Interested in shifting the boundaries between objects, products and clothing, she is perpetually stuck in the 2 1/2 th dimension. Nadege’s artistic practice also fuels the side project ‘la douzaine’, which is a play on a maker’s dozen. Handmade, one-of-a-kind blankets, table linens, clothing and weavings are created for the discerning collector. Small batches and limited editions are the output of unique projects and collaborations, all nodding to a slowly fading textile industry.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Textiles have a long history running parallel to the development of human society. As a major component of material culture, cloth is embedded with real and symbolic values playing general roles in everyday life and specific ones in gender, clothing, architecture and ritual. In this regard cloth is a unique material, hovering between these domains, tying together the histories of labor, community, handcraft and the female body. I am particularly interested in thresholds of perception in woven structures and drawing, resolutions where frameworks are derived from individual elements. These points of tension, where line becomes surface, are echoed by the emergent properties of textiles from their constituent threads. The slow, repetitive and labored build up of line is a crucial act that links the hand, body and spirit. Recently, I have been exploring the appropriation of surface patterns in textiles across systems of dress to communicate identity. Focusing on areas where disciplines overlap, in-between spaces appear and outsider viewpoints prevail, my work is rooted in creating alternative truths thereby enhancing an often-subverted female spirit.
