Lights and Shadows

Text from the catalog for the exhibition “Fashioning Felt” 2009

Ursula Suter from Switzerland produces three-dimensional structured felt surfaces with a kind of reserve technique. This technique is al closely related to the forms of “stitched resist” practiced in Japan and West Africa (Fig. 12a-d). Suter begins with a wafer-thin wool surface. She gently folds, turns or gathers the surfaces in rows and parallel folds. Each pleat is covered with a thin strip of plastic and lightly sewn up with a needle and thread. When she moves on to editing, no area is spared from shrinking. The covered area with the plastic strip only felts for itself and remains more or less raised. When the felting is complete, the ribs protrude from the surface in various shapes. In some cases, a cobweb-like layer of silk fibers is placed on the surface before felting, creating an effect similar to Persian lamb.

Material: various wool qualities, silk fibers
Dimensions approx. 40 / 135 cm

– Pressemitteilung I
– Pressemitteilung II

Ursula Suter -Bild aus dem Katalog
Ursula Suter -Bild aus dem Katalog

My contribution to the exhibition “Fashioning Felt” is the result of several experiments titled “new surface-structures”.
I worked with different materials (wool and silk) in my own techniques of structuring surfaces.