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DANSE MACABRE   RECENT DRAWINGS   2020 - 2021 

RAW WAR   ongoing project since 2003 

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Anti-War.

My profound outrage at the invasion of Iraq 2003 generated an intense need to protest against war. It became the initial source for this series of tapestries. The Syrian civil war, the Israel – Palestine conflict, the crisis in the Ukraine, and current attitudes to nuclear disarmament, are situations and issues that resonate in the later works.

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The extreme opposition that exists between the aesthetics of tapestry and the horror of contemporary warfare define these works.

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CLIMATE CHANGE    ongoing project since 1995 

 

Predictions and prospects

Various works, sketches and work-in-progress

Past – Present – Future

 

The compelling evidence of global warming, how human activity has significantly altered the natural environment, and other questions regarding the future of the planet are ideas and reflections that inform this group of works.

 

The works are about perceiving an exquisite and abundant yet vulnerable and precarious planet.

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YARN   1994

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"Jeg stoler"

Sixteen chair pieces with accompanying stories. 

 

Imprints of naked bottoms represented as woven images on the seats of the actual chairs. Each chair, or group of chairs, is presented together with an anecdotal text inspired by the look and character of the chair.

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THE FABRIC OF CONVERSATION    1994

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Miniature scenes: doll's house chairs with miniature tapestries that allude to various aspects of dialogue.

Selection of four from a series of sixteen individual works, 20 x 20 cm, various heights.

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FINDS   F. UNN    1995 - 2005

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Gutter archaeology.

Litter, refuse, wasted objects, picked up from the street and recycled as part of decorative tapestries.

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LANDSCAPE AND THE NATURE OF TAPESTRY    1977 – 1993

 

Moving from Leeds, a large industrial town in England, to the midst of nature in Norway, made for changes in life and art. A re-examination and re-evaluation of tapestry as a contemporary art form was inevitable.

 

The developments of this period are rooted in the understanding and use of the intrinsic plastic qualities of tapestry construction. Unique to the structure of tapestry is the two-sided property of the woven fabric: two sides united by one and the same image. A tapestry is a durable material, that can be folded, twisted, or knotted and still retain the unity and visual logic of the woven image.

 

The surrounding landscape and the passing of time so perceptible in the changing seasons had a significant impact on my work during this period.

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THE NEAR AND THE DEAR    1963  – 1977

 

In the sixties and most of the seventies I lived in Leeds, England. Coping with a foreign country and culture, raising a family, teaching experimental textiles in a fine art department, and formulating my own artistic practice, was all part of my hectic daily life. Through the immediacy of drawing and the methodical construction of tapestry I structured this initial chaos, and gave it form.

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ETCHINGS

© 2015 UNN SØNJU 
 

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