The Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) is thrilled to announce a major new commission – Plant Song designed by leading contemporary Australian artist Janet Laurence.
Laurence created the design, especially for this tapestry. The design is a composite digital image created with Laurence’s extensive archive of images of plants and are layered with images of paint poured on glass to create a layered transparent effect. Its impact is mesmerizing.
The tapestry has been commissioned by prominent Sydney based collectors and renowned philanthropists Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron.
‘We worked with Janet in 2017 on the private commission Listen, to the Sound of Plants and we are again delighted to collaborate with her on this exciting second tapestry, says Antonia Syme, Director, Australian Tapestry Workshop.
Laurence’s ground-breaking practice explores issues of the natural world and addresses our relationship to nature. Across photography, sculpture, video and installation, Laurence creates visually immersive environments to reflect on the mutability of nature, science, memory and loss. Through her extraordinary work, Janet Laurence offers a deeply experiential and cultural relationship to the environment.
To be woven at the Australian Tapestry Workshop by Chris Cochius, Sue Batten, Amy Cornall & Cheryl Thornton, wool and cotton, 1.56 x 2.7m. Work commenced: October 2019. Anticipated completion date: April 2020.
The ATW weavers have selected a wide pallet of lush greens to create this tapestry, including a high ratio of cotton yarns which are used to create areas of luminosity in the tapestry. ATW dyer Tony Stefanovski has dyed three new wool tones and one new cotton tone in the ATW’s on site colour laboratory for this tapestry to achieve the specific greens for the weavers’ requirements.
ATW weavers will capture these layers; transparent glass areas and lines of light in tapestry weaving by using very subtle colour mixing techniques and using multiple tones that are very close together in colour range. They are working to achieve a soft painterly and watery effect and maintain the reflective surface areas of the design through mixing up to 10 different tones on each bobbin.
Janet Laurence is well known for her public artworks and site-specific installations that extend from the museum and gallery into the urban and landscape domain. Recent significant projects and commissions include an installation for The Pleasure of Love, October Salon, Belgrade (2016); Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, for the Paris Climate Change Conference (2015) and major solo exhibitions at IGA, Berlin (2017), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2017) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2019).
Australian Tapestry Workshop, 262–266 Park St, South Melbourne. Tuesday to Friday, 10am – 5pm. www.austapestry.com.au / 9699 7885.