No images available.
-
PAPESTRIES
BY ROLAND POSKA -
Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present Papestries, an exhibition featuring the works of Roland Poska. A pioneer of handmade paper and printmaking, Poska elevated this craft to national renown in the tumult of the 1980s art world. Made of cotton fibers churned with pure powdered pigments, Poska’s paintings are accumulated works with sculptural attributes and referred to as “Papestries” by the artist. Poska also created sculptures from his handmade cotton paper called “Sentinels.” With the textures and appearance of vibrantly hued felts, these pieces are as idiosyncratic as the process, some featuring pastoral scenery of houses and sunsets, and others with abstractly radiating circles and organic shapes. Poska’s work at once presents whimsicality and imaginative novelty with the gravitas of artistic rigor.
-
-
-
In 1967 Poska purchased a beater for breaking down and blending cotton fibers with water and pigment. His innovative process involved arranging the premixed paper pulp, some wet some dry, into patterns within a sheet metal frame. Once the frame was removed from the front of the dried work, the final piece was revealed. A sizable work like those presented here could take the artist up to six months to complete. In addition to the inception of his papermaking process, in 1967 Poska started Fishy Whale Press and Lithography studio in Rockford, Illinois, where he printed lithographs for himself and others on one of the largest presses in the United States at the time. In collaboration with artist John Doyle, Poska produced a series of prints called The Great Human Race, a project that lasted over thirty years. Many of The Great Human Race prints appear in the collections of American museums.
-
-
-
