Desert Weave

Despite constantly evolving technologies and a pervasive sense of society’s obsession with “progress,” there are a handful of fundamental shapes and mediums that are as absolute, in a sense, as when they were first conceived. Think of a clay pot, a boat hull, a sheet of paper, or the woven fabric of a garment. As long as humans have been on this earth, we have foraged—and eventually cultivated—materials from nature to meet our essential needs. We’ve woven reeds into baskets tight enough to carry liquids and processed yucca fiber into thread so strong it could be used to make rope and sandals. For artist Naomi Livia, a mixed-media practice combining contemporary textile craft and large-format black-and-white photography challenges the notion that humanity and the natural world are mutually exclusive.

Livia’s diptychs juxtapose bold images of deserts, in addition to other abstract shapes, with textural woven shapes. In her current solo exhibition, Desert Weave at The Barn at Frampton Co., the artist explores technology, intimacy, and eco-feminism. The warp and weft are loose and airy, often radiating from an unseen point as if a fragment of an architectural rendering in yarn. There is a delightful tension between order and chaos, the built environment—the frames of the works themselves—and the organic world.

The round stretchers bearing Livia’s weavings also double as looms. Sometimes the diptychs transform into ellipses, subtly evoking embroidery hoops at a large scale, while others consist of stacked shapes or possess subtly interrupted outlines. The complementary photographs, comprising the other half of each piece, are cropped or turned sideways to become nearly abstract. In the deep shadows and wind-blown curves of the dunes, there is the nuanced nod to a long-held artistic and literary metaphor of the landscape as a symbol of the female body: both literally and figuratively, fertile ground—the ancient Greek goddess Demeter, deity of agriculture and harvest—Mother Earth.

In addition to Livia’s large works, smaller pieces also “extend these themes through (compositions of) undulating, body-like dunes that evoke both sensuality and desolation,” the gallery says. Desert Weave continues through July 17 in Bridgehampton, New York.

Header photo by Alan Wiener. All images © the artist, courtesy of Frampton Co.