News
Rita Parniczky
The Blue Lotus Foundation is proud to announce a new exhibition of the work of Rita Parniczky, opening February 22nd - 7th March. Rita is a multi-disciplinary artist, and a member of Livery of The Worshipful Company of Weavers. Her work is held in the Victoria & Albert Museum Permanent Textile Collection, The Worshipful Company of Weavers, and in Private Collections worldwide.
Rita is a multidisciplinary artist. In her work, she captures and exposes the physical properties of everyday objects and materials, and plays with the viewer’s perception. Pursuing an interest in invisible structures, she has developed her own weave technique to reveal the vertical warp, which she sees as the skeleton of the woven body. In previous work, the ‘XRay’ series, she challenged the boundaries of traditional weaving with unconventional materials, testing how far she could push weave against its own conventions. Through installation, she exposes the structure to light to investigate materiality, movement and time. For example, the way a weaving is visually transformed and mistaken for glass; a change that occurs when the sun progresses across space gradually altering the appearance of the woven medium in its way. This performance, between artwork and sunlight, marks the passing of time, and emphases location and chance.
From exposing fragile structures, she ventures to transform or fix some of her sculptures with plaster. In ‘Broken Bones’, with an initial focus on textiles she investigates how we understand objects, and people; how expectations and limitations are formed. |
Juxtaposing the original weave with plaster she defamiliarises it from its expected role as textiles, and challenges the viewer to reinterpret meanings previously formed of this work. The application of plaster has its origins in her experience of having broken bones as a small child, and the limitations that she experienced through protection from her family. By handling plaster, she found herself reconnected with her memories, and as such, faced how this specific time in her childhood profoundly shaped her. The work, as a reflection, evolved to depict this time through processes, such as covering with plaster, or breaking some of it off the surface. The latter produces fragments revealing imprints of the woven skeletal arrangement, which appear as marks or scars, that she then pieces together in attempt of fixing the structure again, as a continuous performance.
Continuing this exploration of structure and the decontextualisation of her sculptures, she documents the imprints of the weaves in graphite on paper. Investigating the boundaries of the frottage technique, she attempts to produce unexpected qualities and varied outcomes of the same exact woven piece; wondering how different it may appear depending on if she can achieve freedom of mind to imagine the yet unseen. ‘Structures’ continues these explorations through paper sculptures and her work in mixed-media. |
Catch up on the work of all the artists who have shared their work in the project space in our Archive.
Over the past couple of years we have explored the work of many artists, with thanks to: Jo Milne, Davina Kirkpatrick, WhiteFeather Hunter, Rita Parniczky, Iris Garrelfs, Stacey Blythe, Rosalind Wilson, Daniel Davidsson, Carol Laidler, Carlos David, Andrew Spira, Yong, Min Cho, Moich Abrahams, Stephen Carter, Genie Portezky-Lee, Antoni Malinowski, Veronique Maria, Minami Kobayashi, Anna Walker, Rashid Maxwell, and Rosana Miracco. |
Genie Poretzky-Lee's project, Drawing A Year, are images to be shared, free gifts to whoever wants to acquire one. For more information visit www.drawing-a-year.com, or Instagram: drawing.a.year
The aim of The Blue Lotus Foundation is to support the new and the unusual. We are living through extraordinary times. Now, more than ever we need to nurture community, creative endeavours, and cultural events. We believe in the importance of the artist in shaping our awareness at a visionary as well as imaginative level, and in what it means to bring art and healing together in synthesis. As well as hosting exhibitions, we are also an open venue for small groups to meet and participate in film screenings, poetry readings and workshops. For the past ten years we have successfully held a variety of events presented by many wonderful artists. In addition we support authors to publish their first writings, such as Bika Reed, Aidan A. Dunn, Jay Ramsey, Genie Portezky-Lee and many more.
SUPPORT THE BEESThe Blue Lotus Foundation actively supports the preservation of nature and bee life. Join us and donate to The World Bee Project CIC - http://worldbeeproject.org/
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JAY RAMSAY
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