CAMERON ANNE MASON | THE FABRIC OF MEMORY
From the Ashes, textile, 30 x 30 inches (diptych).
Foster/White Gallery is thrilled to showcase Cameron Anne Mason's new body of work. This collection is distinguished by its rich flows and blooms of intense color in two-dimensional wall sculpture and three-dimensional free-standing forms. A balance between alchemy and craft, the work displays mastery of numerous textile processes, from dyeing techniques to surface treatments and intricate stitching. An appreciation of nature and her surrounding landscape is at the forefront as Mason draws our attention to the emblematic flora, distinct glacial topography of the Pacific Northwest and recent changes in our surroundings.
Nisqually, textile, 30 x 8 x 4.25 inches.
Fabric is fundamental to my artwork. It is an intimate part of our lives wrapping us from birth to death. It protects us from the elements, gives us comfort, and is a means to express ourselves. It is sensual and essential. My work is in transforming fabric from its pedestrian uses into fine art.
My inspiration begins in the dye studio. The primary fabrics for this exhibition were dyed using ice and gravity. The melting ice activates the dye, and gravity pulls it through the fabrics to create ombre watercolor washes. Ice changes from solid to liquid to gas, leaving a document of its transformation on the fabric.
Witnessing this process, I find it impossible not to think of the melting of ice on a global scale caused by our warming planet. Glaciers, these huge and ancient forces, which took millennia to carve out the geography of our region are disappearing within our lifetimes.
The sculptures in this show are named for glaciers in Washington State, a memorial to their disappearing. These forms break into three-dimensions, their fabrics dyed using methods of folding, binding, and printing. Monotypes of sword and bracken ferns, native plants that are survivors of drought and tough conditions, are frozen in time with dye on fabric.
The whole cloth pieces featured in this exhibition are dynamic documents of change over time, sped up in the dye studio. In each artwork stitch is structural and integral. It adds emphasis and embellishment, provides depth and pattern, and connects the fabrication to its traditional uses.The installation, The Fabric of Memory, uses ice dyeing on a large scale to contextualize the massive issue of our warming planet. These 13-foot-tall silk organza and chiffon panels are translucent, a presence that dominates the space like the elephant in the room, ever-changing as you shift perspective.
Nature closely observed and recorded, and the evidence of human hands upon it, are the themes of my artwork. Time is the inexorable subtext. My work is rooted in the Northwest, highlighting the challenges of a changing environment by looking closely at our geography’s emblematic natural forms and flora. - Cameron Anne Mason
The Limit of Terrain, textile, 16 x 40 inches.
Mason holds a degree in Visual Communication from the Art Institute of Seattle and studied Liberal Arts at the University of Washington. Her artwork has shown across the country and at galleries around the Northwest, as well as Whatcom Museum of Art, Bellingham, WA; Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, WA; and Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA. Her work was included in a group exhibition at Miniartextile in Como Italy, and the Rio Patchwork Design Show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.