Textile Forum
Issue 3; 2013.
Artist: Gabriel Dawe
Light Plexuses.
Light Plexuses is a awe inspiring installation that takes the use of textile thread to a whole new dimension. Gabriel Dawe first came to create these elegant displays of colour while a student in Dallas, when a exhibition he was viewing, gave him the incentive to explore the intersections between architecture and fashion.
Dawe creates complex structures of taut thread, in which the finely graded colours exquisitely reminisce rays of shining light, working perfectly together to create a rainbow of intersecting colours. However, these installations go deeper than the initial captivation of colour , Each Plexus, as Dawe explains, are created and named to represent the body's network of nerves within the human body, and there magnificent ability to work in complete harmony.
Each installation is as sumptuous as the next, ensnaring its surroundings like a spiders web, viewers become entranced by the ever changing gradient of colour as they make their way around the structure. As if they where created as digital projections, the thread indulges the light created from its surroundings, making these semi transparent installations breathe a lease of life.
When creating each structure, Dawe examines the particularity of the installation space , and then designs each piece to bring tranquillity to its surroundings. Painstaking detail and precision is put into each installation, which is created through repetition and colour management, using the concept of harmonious colours to create the dream like effect. Each single piece of thread is independent, which allows the structures to create curves and contours, allowing the pieces to inhabit the sense of effusion and movement.
As each installation is only temporary, Dawe must then dismantle the thread, until all that remains is a pile of vibrant wool. Its journey doesn't finish there though, Dawe then creates what he calls 'Plexi Relics', placing the wool in a clear box, giving the thread a second life.
This is by far my favourite collection of work I have reviewed so far, the passion, patience and drive that goes into making each installation is to be admired. As Dawe himself mentions in the video i have posted bellow, a sense of wonder is imposed on almost every person that views these structures, and this was certainly the case for me.
Link to video; http://vimeo.com/31383293
Plexi Relics. Plexus 5.
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