NYAB Event - Martha Clippinger “Xigie”

Martha Clippinger “Xigie”

Hionas Gallery LES

[Image: Martha Clippinger "Xigie" (2014) hand-dyed wool, 72 x 48 in.]

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Hionas Gallery presents Xigie, the latest solo exhibition from artist Martha Clippinger. This show, Clippinger’s first solo venture with the gallery, is comprised of woven works created during the artist’s recent Fulbright grant period in Oaxaca, Mexico. She previously had work included in the gallery’s group exhibition Drifter, curated by David Rhodes, in December 2013.

During Clippinger’s stay in Mexico, she studied indigenous Oaxacan textiles and began learning the variant of the Zapotec language specific to Teotitlán del Valle, a village known for its production of tapetes, woolen tapestries woven on pedal looms. Clippinger’s interest in the language and culture of Xigie (the Zapotec name for Teotitlán del Valle) led her to weavers Licha Gonzalez Ruíz and Agustin Contreras López, who translated Clippinger’s designs into wool.

In Xigie, Clippinger’s saturated palette is articulated through the hand-dyed wool of her tapetes. While these two-dimensional works differ from the small constructions of wood and paint for which the artist is known, her tapetes retain a three-dimensional presence and, like Clippinger’s previous works, engage with the surrounding environment.

Inspired by Anni Albers’ discussion of the “Pliable Plane” and textiles’ relationship to architecture, the artist has noted, “I’ve seen tapetes jump from the floor to the wall and back again. There is both a figurative and literal flexibility to the tapete. In Oaxaca, there is no single rule as to how these woven works should be utilized or displayed; I love that open-endedness.”

The intersection of fine art and craft has long been of interest to Clippinger, particularly when geometry is at play. “The structure of my early paintings was influenced by quilts,” says the artist, “a craft form that was very familiar to me while growing up in Georgia. In creating these works, I developed simple compositions based on verticals and horizontals of the warps and wefts inherent to the tapete structure.”

Born in Columbus, GA, Clippinger received her BA from Fordham University and her MFA from Mason Gross School of Art, Rutgers University, and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award and a 2013 Fulbright Research Grant, completed in Oaxaca, Mexico. Clippinger’s work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, The New Criterion, and ARTnews. Her work is included in several public collections including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally and is represented by Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York.