Aragon
Tapestry: 695mm x 620mm (framed)
British wool on linen warp
Price: £2,275
Aragon is woven on a linen warp at 4wpi and the weft is comprised of five hand-dyed strands each spun to 2/10Nm. The tapestry is presented at 22.5 inches high and 25 inches wide and mounted in a moulded wooden frame. Inside the frame, woven into one hem, is the year (26) in binary and maker’s mark in Morse code (GP).
Aragon explores the relationship between space and colour and under scrutiny the piece appears to pulse and beat. The weft is carefully hand-dyed, and the individual threads are blended to create precise tones and hues. The fundamental simplicity of construction belies the resulting complexity of gradation of colour.
Art should open the heart and the mind. The viewer uses their eyes to see and their mind to evaluate. When starting a tapestry, everything is possible. Knowing what to say may be the first problem but once this has been decided the second problem is even more difficult: how to create it. In Aragon, the Senyera pattern, as used in one of the oldest European flags dating from the 12th century, has been repeated with gradual reductions and increases in the stripes as a metaphor for the perpetual fight for independence, freedom and/or democracy.
Although informed by Abstract Expressionism, Aragon salutes the work from the Optical Art practitioners, Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley.
Art shouldn’t stop at the retina, it should encourage thought and reflection and allow discovery. Maybe Aragon will enable viewers to consider their relationship to freedom, independence, and democracy. Some of us take these for granted, some only dream of them.
