Specifications
Pictured Size
1.72 x 2.40m (5'8" x 7'10")
Weave
Hand knotted
Materials
Handspun wool
About This Rug
This rug was the product of a wish to have a collage of mine made into a rug for a particular room in my house - and Christopher Farr's willingness and ability to work with me to fulfil that wish. The result, I think, is extraordinary. The trompe l’oil effect is both convincing and surprising and not something I anticipated. The actual work it comes from has a 3 dimensional rope frame - and here, interpreted in the hand knotted rug, the effect is startlingly 3-dimensional, but the reality is flat, a fact that is either discovered later, or not until it has been pointed out. Within the frame, the actual image fluctuates, much more so in the rug than in the original, between figuration and abstraction and the interpretation of the 3-dimensional aspects of the collage oscillate between appearing raised and level with the rug's surface. There is so much going on in the interpretation - a whole new work has been created - and with so many aspects of it to consider and marvel at, I never cease to be delighted by it. All of my collage works start with the image of a particular flower, an auricula. There are hundreds of varieties, many of which are given (to the uninitiated) unusual/fanciful names. I use some of these when titling my works, or invent my own, when I don’t think the original suits. The piece the rug came from was called Stromboli because I have heard so many romantic stories about the volcanic island and dream of visiting it. It is a sort of charm to that dream and contains within it I hope, some of the magic I presume I would experience there.
