HILARY BRACE TAPESTRIES, December, 2022
Interview with writer and curator Helen Adams, who has compiled a growing survey of textile art from around the world. She also posts examples of creative work in textiles on her Instagram page instagram.com/textilecurator
__________________________________________________________________
HILARY BRACE: DRAWINGS AND TAPESTRIES January 8 - February 19, 2022
Exhibition Review: "Darkness Made Visible in Hilary Brace’s Drawings and Tapestries"
Press Release:
In her essay for Hilary Brace’s exhibition, Rachel McCullah Wainwright, Curator at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, describes one’s initial encounter with Brace’s charcoal drawings as “an immediate polarity” and a reckoning with “process and imagery." This is because they are at once intimate and sublime. They are realistic depictions of clouds and weather, yet fantastically on the edge of believability. And her technique is so extraordinary that one’s first inclination is to guess they are photographs, though that assumption becomes unsettling when the epic and mythical proportions of these subjects sinks in. Reviewing the work for the New York Times, Ken Johnson declared, “Once in a while you come across an art of such refined technique that it seems the product of sorcery more than human craft.” Starting with the smooth surface of polyester film darkened with charcoal, Brace works in a reductive manner by removing charcoal with erasers and other handmade tools. As Wainwright concludes, “In a world saturated with images and information, these works slow us down, encourage wonder and confirm the importance of observing, exploring and reconsidering, for things are often not what they seem.” In this, and her previous exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, Brace has taken this sorcery to further spectacular heights by translating her wildly Baroque weather phenomena into large-scale textiles at the TextielLab in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Working with a sophisticated Jacquard loom and unusual combinations of reflective and luminescent threads, Brace achieves what she calls, “a light reactive surface…so that the pieces change in response to the light source or the position of the viewer; alive, like light in nature.”
___________________________________________________________________
HILARY BRACE: Drawings and Tapestries
September 5 - October 4, 2019 with Artist Talk September 17th
Moorpark College Art Gallery
________________________________________________________________
WOMEN ON THE RISE 2019: HILARY BRACE, LINDA EKSTROM, PEGGY POWNALL AND ASTRID PRESTON
VITA ART CENTER, VENTURA, CA
FEBRUARY 23 THROUGH MARCH 22, 2019
The Vita Art Center, in collaboration with Focus on the Masters, will exhibit the artwork of 4 women artists who will be honored by the FOTM program during 2019. Each will be interviewed, and their artwork will be extensively documented and archived. This is the third annual exhibit featuring women
to be co-curated by Vita Art Center and Focus on the Masters. Hilary Brace will be interviewed by Donna Granata for Focus on the Masters at the Ventura County Museum of Art on October 13, 2019.
_________________________________________________________________
NATURE IMAGINED: HILARY BRACE, ELLEN JEWETT AND CHERYL MEDOW
THE WILDLING MUSEUM OF ART AND NATURE
SOLVANG, CA
JULY 21, 2018 - JANUARY 2019
The Wildling Museum of Nature and Art presents a special exhibition that celebrates nature through the vivid imaginations of three artists who use diverse materials and methods to create environments that engage the imagination. The viewer is invited to explore the unique weaving of image, texture, and detail that resembles nature and yet is unlike anything in the natural world.
___________________________________________________________________
HILARY BRACE TAPESTRIES AND DRAWINGS
CRAIG KRULL GALLERY, SANTA MONICA, CA
JANUARY 20 - FEBRUARY 24, 2018
Hilary Brace is recognized for her intimately sized, yet sublime charcoal drawings of waves, clouds and wildly Baroque weather. In reviewing her drawings, The New York Times wrote, "once in a while you come across an art of such refined technique that it seems the product of sorcery more than human craft..." Starting with the smooth surface of polyester film darkened with charcoal, Brace works in a reductive manner by removing charcoal with erasers and other handmade tools. According to Christopher Knight of the LA Times, the work "conjures ephemeral poetics of light and space." The exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery opening on January 20 will feature a group of recent drawings, and will also premiere her new work in tapestries. While a visiting artist at the American Academy of Rome, Brace was inspired by Raphael's tapestries, and considered how she could translate her images into large-scale textile pieces. She was introduced to the TextielMuseum in Tilberg, The Netherlands and began working with their TextielLab. The sophisticated Jacquard looms allowed for fine detail and complex thread combinations that resulted in what Brace calls, "a light-reactive surface, so that the pieces change in response to the light source or position of the viewer."
All images ©Hilary Brace All Rights Reserved
