TAPESTRY WEAVER AND ARTIST
ARTIST STATEMENT
The medium in which I choose to work is fiber, primarily flat woven pieces. I’ve picked this less than common medium, having been drawn to the possibilities of relationships between subliminal texture and the interaction of light and color.
Having taken this route, the weavings can become an embodiment of the freedom to explore how colors relate to each other and to the surface properties of the fibers used. Pure color and specific color combinations of color have the power to speak to each of us, often producing differing responses in each person. By limiting the vocabulary to color and woven texture, the works are better able to stimulate reactions and emotions that these raw color and spatial relationships can have on the viewer.
Recent pieces of work over the last several years have addressed the impact of human and natural causes on the homes and lives of people. These include houses that disappear into the sands of war, are filled with rising flood waters or simply vanish as the natural consequence of time.
One set of recent work is a group of tapestry woven pixelated faces, touching on abstraction and reality at the same time. Most recent is a set of large scale “Imagined Language” tapestries.
Yet, without the foreknowledge of what is behind the creation of these images, the works stand as objects of quiet beauty: begun with white yarns of wool, silk, linen and other fibers, I add my own dyes to achieve a range colors and contrast not available in commercially dyed materials. Like a painter, I mix my own colors to create something new.
“MY WORK IS A REFLECTION OF WHAT I CHOOSE TO PAY ATTENTION TO.”
— MICHAEL ROHDE | ARTIST
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE STUDIO
Just a few images from my work and process at the studio.
