Many tense lines make light work

By ADAM GIFFORD


Sitting in Deborah Crowe's studio, a skyline garage behind her Three Kings home, we watch the way the changing light outside affects her new works.

Nylon monofilament, dyed in bright colours and wound in vertical lines around plates of thick glass, takes in the light and incandesces, changing its colour and that of neighbouring lines.

The works, on show at Vavasour/Godkin Gallery under the title Warp, build on Crowe's earlier experiments with embroidery and textiles, including a detour into high fashion.

They also look forward to her next major project, an installation in Pakuranga's Te Tuhi Gallery next April, which will explore relationships between textiles and architecture.

"I trained in embroidered and woven textiles and tend to think of that as three-dimensional, perhaps because of the construction," says Crowe.

That early work included weaving in wire to make sculptural forms, a practice she continues to play with.

"It is kind of wild but that is part of the fun, getting it under control is part of the fun. Getting it to work relies on tension, and tension has been an important thing in my practice from early on, both physically, tensioning the work, plus creating some tension in space and tension for the viewer."

By early on Crowe means Scotland, where she was born (at Kirriemuir near Dundee, birthplace of J.M. Barrie), and went to art school in Glasgow.

She moved to New Zealand immediately after graduation in 1986, and has taught various fibre, fine art and fashion courses at Whitecliffe College of Art & Design and more recently Manukau Institute of Technology.

She has also shown her work in a range of settings, including jewellery co-operative Fingers, and fashion shops, before joining the Vavasour/Godkin roster three years ago. "They don't mind me making 24 holes in the floor and ceiling," she laughs.

Context is important, especially for an artist working in materials and techniques normally associated with design.

"Work will be viewed or received according to the context it is presented in and how it is discussed, as well. The maker has a separate responsibility and can employ certain strategies to determine how it is seen. I think we all have choices," Crowe says.

As Crowe's work generates multiple layers of association, choosing the setting becomes part of the work. She tends to look broadly when looking at art.

"I look a lot at contemporary dance and performance and theatre, and being a fan of that has made me interested in light works and light and space works."

Warp includes a series of wall pieces, each one pane behind another, and one large work, hanging between ceiling and floor, which visitors can walk around and among.

"Making this work, it seemed movement was important, it was quite rhythmical how they work together," says Crowe. "There is a 'moire' effect that happens, which is all about rhythm, all about the space in between things.

"That is why it has been great for me to create this larger work, where the viewer can move around it, and the colours start to vibrate."

The colours relate to paintings by British abstract artist Bridget Riley. Making the work, Crowe was reminded of a performance she saw while at art school of the Ballet Rambert doing interpretations of Riley paintings.

"I see these more as drawing than anything else. My definition of drawing is something that relates to line. Then there is the idea of drawing in space, which you do with light and colour and tension. There is this sense of working in three dimensions and using tension to break up spaces.

"I am very interested in the links between planning and drafting processes, taking things from two dimensions to three dimensions.

"Drawing can also be experimental or it can be process oriented. A lot of the work I do is heavily labour intensive."

Exhibition

*What: Warp, by Deborah Crowe

*Where and when: Vavasour/Godkin Gallery, 2nd floor, 35 High St, to Nov 13