Before being an artist, Jacqueline Surdell was an athlete. Years of work have awakened her interest in repetitive, laborious, and artisanal practices. Today, she uses fiber to create works that are painterly in nature, requiring her entire body to act as a weaving shuttle. When she creates, her hand acts as a brushstroke. In her “Untitled Noir Series,” she explores precisely the techniques of knotting as a type of connective drawing device, creating structure and defining space. “It is a transformative technique combining the reedy and slack with volume and shape. The performative, repetitive nature of the technique imbues an element of time as much as it speaks of space and volume. The incorporation of egalitarian material, such as rope and steel, renders the work large-scale, suggesting strength, machinery, and industry. The result is a series of sculptures rendered through a combination of industrial versus domestic and tradition versus modern”, as she explains on her website.
More to see on her website or her Instagram account.
