International Painters Exhibit

Friday night, I got off work, rushed into the bathroom at the drivers lounge, changed into a nice blouse and did my makeup. I picked up Clare and Pat W. and we raced up to Eugene, Or. in the pouring rain. The Emerald Art Gallery in Springfield was exhibiting our International Painters Challenge. They were having their 2nd Friday Art Walk & Artists Reception, the place was packed. My munchies that I brought, chocolate trail mix clusters were gone in under two minutes.

The challenge had 30 U.S. artists, 30 from France and 30 from Japan. One person from each country was assigned an artist, for a total of 90 quilted wall hangings, 19" square. They were displayed as a set, an artist with an artwork from each country, on a black fabric background. It was really interesting to see how each textile artist interpreted the painter. Mine is the top Leonardo da Vinci piece, you can see how I made it here and here.

Mucha by American artist and curator Linda Steller, she coordinated the U.S. artists, and has arranged for the entire collection to be exhibited at all the American Quilt Society shows in 2016. So it may come to your area, please go see it.

Cezanne was interpreted by Sylvia, from our Fyber Cafe group. It has pieces of hand dyed silk, that she dyed with this project in mind.

Many of the pieces had 3-D elements, as this Degas artwork by a French textile artist.

Beads and sequins added extra sparkle to this art work, by a Japanese artist.

All of the Klimpt pieces were richly done with gold metallic fabrics and lots of beading. I especially liked the way the face was painted/transferred.

The French version of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.


Monet's water garden was done in hand dyed fabrics, strip pieced by the U.S. artist and 3-D silk waterlilies, with organza flowers from France.

I really liked the beautiful color on this Georgia O'Keeffe flower and the detailed thread work, from the U.S.

Renoir's flower girls were wonderfully collaged from floral fabrics.

Tokaido's trees in the fog, was the most similar of two works by the same artist. All the others were completely different as the textile artists interpreted each painter from a different point of view, the 3 Klimt's & Mucha's were also the most similar style wise.

Warhol's style in different colors ways, was great, it reminded me of my Golden retriever. The thread painting was well done and unique to each section.

The layers of tulle and other shears gave this Wyeth painting the beautifully blended contours of the woman. I was impressed with the technical aspect of how this was achieved. There were many more wonderful art works, but I can only show you a few that caught my attention the most. The gallery was a wonderful place and I thank them for the excellent job they did to display everything. A bunch of us from the Roseburg area then went out to dinner at the Plank House Pub, and I got fresh steelhead with mushroom Marsala and roasted hazelnuts, it was fabulous. It was also interesting to see the "big" city atmosphere of a collage town, with the variety of people all conversing loudly, and enjoying a late Friday night out. Roseburg as a small town, tends to shut down early. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse in the World Painters Challenge, please see it if it comes to your area.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.