Soft Systems
Soft Systems: Digital Tapestry and Open Studio
solo exhibition at The Vestibule, Seattle, 2022
From curator Kascha Snavely:
Allyce Wood weaves for softness, for connection, and to create stories bridging her experience with those of generations past.
Wood draws together heritage weaving techniques with her own very contemporary language of aesthetics. She composes digital paintings from photography and drawn imagery. After manipulating and extending an image, she translates it into a pixelated file ready for a computerized loom.
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Wood creates each piece with intention, all the way down to her fiber selection. Bunad threads from Scandinavian regions in her travels appear in orange and purples, while yellows and greens enter as a gift from local weavers passed on. Wood carries the memory of the source in each tapestry, adding the illusion of color-blending and effect with a place, a moment, a line of learning she is still tracing. The tapestries are a material history of the landscapes and culture that inspired them.
Soft Systems, installation view
Glint, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and inherited hand-dyed wool, 40 x 41.75”, 2021
Modulated Surface, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and wool, 41 x 42”, 2021
Ripple Structure, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry, bunad cotton thread, cotton, and wool, 24 x 41.25”, 2021
Stabilize, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and wool with embroidery, 23.5 x 41”, 2019
Pink Grip, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and wool with embroidery, 11 x 40.25”, 2019
from right to left, top row then bottom row:
Interlocked Columns, hand-knit tapestry in cotton, 12 x 7”, 2021
Rose-tinted, watercolor on paper, 8.5 x 11.75”, 2022
Ripple Sample, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and reclaimed wool, 14.25 x 19.5”, 2021
Horizon Tapestry, handwoven tapestry in reclaimed cotton, wool, and acrylic, 23 x 16.5”, 2022
Unbalanced Weave, watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 17.5”, 2022
Seen Above, handwoven digital jacquard tapestry with embroidery in cotton and wool, 15.75 x 9.25”
Pink Rope, handwoven kumihimo in cotton and nylon, 34 x 0.5”
Gold Structure, watercolor on paper, 9 x 6”, 2022
Glow Sample, industrially woven digital jacquard tapestry in cotton and wool with embroidery, 8 x 8.5”, 2019
Concrete, handwoven tapestry in cotton, 11.5 x 5.25”, 2022
Hand Over Hand
kumihimo braid woven in cotton, wool, nylon, and acrylic fiber, 900 x 3 x 1”, 2022
Corner installation view with studio set-up, which includes a marudai and four-shaft table loom
This project was supported, in part, by a grant from 4Culture