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Indepth Arts News:
"Danièle Schiffmann: Works of Paper"
2004-04-08 until 2004-05-22
Dublin Arts Council
Dublin, OH,
USA United States of America
Dublin Arts Council is pleased to announce the exhibition Danièle Schiffmann: Works of Paper, on view in the Dublin Arts Council Gallery April 8 – May 22, 2004. For many artists, paper represents merely the starting point in their work—the “blank canvas” —and water is rarely anything more than a means to clean paint brushes. For Strasbourg, France artist Danièle Schiffmann, paper is the finished product, and water is her subject. Working gesturally on large screens, the artist creates large-scale works of handmade paper that reflect the energy and flow of water within the piece itself, as well as within nature.
Schiffmann writes, “Water creates slippery shades, layers and pleats. Water flows in sinuous branches and quiet ponds. In its strongest form, water erodes away the earth…. Water dictates its energy in every piece of art that I create.”
Schiffmann crushes a variety of pulps—hemp, abacca, cotton and flax— then dyes to intense hues using African dyes, rinsing and pressing against the screens to create heavily textured abstractions. Saturated colors, whether soft blacks and grays or vivid pinks, oranges and reds, put down in infinite layers of soft pulp, combine to create works that exhibit depth and rich texture.
Schiffmann identifies with the Japanese aesthetic known as wabi-sabi. Derived from Zen Buddhism, wabi-sabi describes beauty in things that are modest, simple, and even imperfect, whose physical characteristics are irregular, unpretentious, and suggest a natural process. She is careful to let water and fiber take a primary role, recognizing that she achieves her best works of art when the two natural elements assert their own natural tendencies.
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