Andrea Donnelly

Where We Meet
September 7 – October 21, 2012

A 2010 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s nationally renowned MFA program in Craft+Material Studies (Fiber), Donnelly weaves by hand monumental-scale images of the human figure, inkblots, and manipulated forms she calls bodyblots.

Donnelly’s laborious process involves dying her fibers and hand painting patterns and images on the warp (perpendicular threads) before weaving the cloth. Created through a complex yet highly spontaneous process of weaving, staining, unweaving, and reweaving, Donnelly’s figurative works explore cloth’s intimate and universal material relationship with the body. She employs cloth as a literal reference to the human figure, drawing on sensory memories and the intimate connections we all have to cloth in its many domestic forms. Donnelly’s mural-sized weavings depict abstracted self-portraits, paradoxically presenting the figure on a medium traditionally used to conceal it.

This exhibition was presented with support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.