Unframed size approx: 50.5 x 41.5cm (19.9 x 16.3 inches)
Framed size approx: 65.3 x 56.3cm (25.7 x 22.2 inches)
Date of Artwork: 2024
Frame options: White wood, Putty wood, Black wood (all with mount)
Please note: Our framers are recognised by the Fine Art Trade Guild for their quality because the custom frames have tightly pinned corners, and are made from precision cut wood in England, made bespoke for each order. All our frames are glazed with our Clarity+ Perspex. It's cut from the highest quality acrylic sheet that's both crystal clear, but also safe and filters out 99% of UV light to protect the artwork.
Read more about our FRAMING WORKSHOP here
THE STORY | MESSAGES IN BLUE
Emma Carlow has created a series of beautifully atmospheric and mysterious antique French linen textile works for her new collection for The Shop Floor Project.
Using her cutout 'cardboard sketches', Emma has created a series of one-off textile pieces by applying the 19th century cyanotype technique to antique French linen.
Cyanotype is one of the earliest photographic techniques. Discovered in 1842, it involves laying objects, in Emma's case cardboard cutouts, on paper or fabric which has been coated with a solution of iron salts. This is then slowly exposed to sunlight to turn the uncovered surface a deep Prussian blue.
The imagery in this new collection is inspired by Emma Carlow's recent research into mediaeval bestiaries.
Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular throughout the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, plants and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson and reflected the belief that every living thing had its own special meaning.
A great deal of the charm in bestiaries comes from the humour and imagination of the illustrations. In many cases the artist had never seen some of the animals they were describing, for example in some of the bestiaries a crocodile has six legs and resembles a horse or dragon.
The plants and trees in bestiaries are also very stylised which Emma has explored in these new works.
One of the fascinating aspects to these manuscripts was that they contained secret messages. By placing a certain animal next to a certain plant, all manner of ciphers and secret meanings could be decoded. Emma has played with this through her compositions with motifs such as keys, symbols and animals laid out in mysterious pictorial messages.
The process of creating these works through the cyanotype technique lends further to this enigmatic effect. As the images emerge, unveiled by the sun, the linen takes on a hazy and faded appearance, creating something of a painterly, watery world with an antique time-worn feel.
The very act of exposing the linen to the elements, for the iron salts to react with the sun, means that the cutouts are moved, however minutely, by the air. This movement causes a type of blurring, an element of the process that Emma Carlow cultivates and uses throughout the collection. Look, for instance at the ear of the hare and how this has created an appearance of fur, or the way a silent bird flies through the air, the movement of the exposure adding a sense of flight.
Referencing the composition of antique flags and appliquéd quilts, the use of antique French Linen is the perfect material for these works. Expertly stretched onto acid-free mounts framed with UV protection, these works are museum quality and arrive ready to hang.
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