Alexander Winch [2017, Painting]

For sale are jacquard woven textiles Inspired by the wildlife of North America. Drawing on multiple sources including Ancient Egypt Bas Relief carving, Renaissance landscapes, and Victorian Floral Patterns, Alex Winch creates jacquard multi-pick blankets and double-cloth stuffed tapestries depicting natural scenes. In the blankets, floral vertical half-drop patterns are combined with creatures drawn in strict profile ( inspired by ancient Egyptian depictions of animals) along with flattened scenic elements to show a nature scene in a new way. In the stuffed tapestries, natural scenes along the Susquehanna River watershed are depicted as a form of sound-dampening artwork for Farm-to-Table restaurants. The strange, flattened space in both the Blankets and Tapestries references ancient modes of depiction separate from the lens-based perspectival world such as Ancient Greek Black figure pottery, Ottoman Turkish Miniature paintings and Early Renaissance altar pieces. For the blankets, each element was originally a drawing made by the artist then traced and scanned into the computer for final arrangement. The Tapestries were originally gouache paintings. From these original artworks, an indexed color image is produced which is then sent to the a Weaving mill to have a weave file made and the fabric woven.