Visual Textures

A major inspiration of mine has always been textures.  As a textile design student, textures are very important to me; both visually as well as textures that I can touch and feel.  Last week I had the opportunity to attend a few field trips where I was able to collect some textural inspiration to apply to my own work and studies.  The first one was a self guided trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where I focussed on looking at textures of paint on canvas.  

Some textures were thicker, with acrylic and oil paints applied heavily onto the canvas.  Others were soft and utilized untreated canvas and thinner, watered down paints and inks to give a more fluid feel. Two paintings that were essentially opposites really stood out to me, one being Helen Frankenthaler’s “Protect Renoir” from 1974, which portrays colour seeping into the fabric of the canvas.  The second is Florence Carlyle’s “The Tiff” from around 1902, in which a woman seated wears a thickly painted floral dress. I have included close up photos of each in which the colours are very similar, but the styles are very different. In both paintings, the colours and brushstrokes are the most intriguing aspect, allowing the viewer to appreciate the action and personality of the painting, and to feel the emotions the artist must have felt when creating the work.

The next day we had the opportunity to go on a studio tour as a class, in which we visited Tanya Love’s studio and had a chance to look at some of her very textural works.  Love’s work has a strong commitment to nature and to the portrayal of natural imagery. One piece that was hanging on the wall of her studio was extremely visually textural, as well as physically tactile; it is pictured below.  Though it is behind glass, it is obvious to see the ripples of the material used and to feel the texture visually without needing to touch it, giving the piece a feeling of realism, like it really exists in nature.

One the same day, we were also able to visit the Textile Museum’s storage room where many antique embroidered textiles are kept.  In this case, the textures are definitely tactile and would be able to be felt with the touch of a hand. At the time that these textiles were created, visuals were often created with embroidery and colours and patterns were portrayed through stitch.  Below I have included a photograph of an assortment of antique embroidered textiles which are being kept together. In this photo, as well as through Love’s piece, textures are shown pictorially like the paintings seen in the gallery, but the textures have been explored in a much different, more traditional way.

Helen Frankenthaler, “Protect Renoir”, 1974 from The Art Gallery of Ontario

Florence Carlyle, “The Tiff”, 1902 from The Art Gallery of Ontario

Framed piece by Tanya Love in her studio, Toronto

Rolled antique textiles from storage at the Textile Museum, Toronto