Elaine Reichek, "Sampler (A blurred region)," 2001. Courtesy of Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Photo by Gene Ogami.
August 7th, 2021
By Allison Strauss
Fans of Los Angeles’ Craft Contemporary museum will enjoy Above & Below at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. The exhibition features twelve artists working in textile art, ranging from ethnic craft traditions to the wildly unconventional.
The show marks the Los Angeles debuts of Madame Moreau and Yveline Tropéa. Moreau anchors the traditional end of craft in the exhibition with Henry Christoph flag, a beaded ceremonial vodou banner depicting Haiti’s revolutionary war hero and king. Tropéa’s canvases too are covered in beading, illustrating abstracted people and creatures that suggest folklore influences. The French artist lives part-time in Burkina Faso where she has been influenced by Yoruba beading, and where she hires and trains women–disenfranchised kidnapping survivors of Boko Haram–as beaders. Similarly, Gil Yefman felted a bedspread size wall hanging in the show with Kuchinate, a craft collective of African women refugees in Israel.
Read more here.
