Sonia Delaunay’s Quilt by Jane Gerrish

Size (cm): 113 x 33
Collage of papers made with watercolour

Giving rise to each new series, art history research grounds my practice.
For this work, on a recent research trip to France, artist Sonia Delaunay (b.Ukraine 1885 – d.Paris 1979) inspired me.
In Paris in 1911, a twenty-six year old Delaunay sat stitching a patchwork quilt for her baby Charles, piecing together textile fragments of jewel colours with black accents.
Now held at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, historians believe the precious artefact evidences her first foray into Modernism.
In a pivotal moment in art history, Delaunay had laid the foundations for the groundbreaking Geometric Abstraction movement.
Using geometry as an armature in works of this period, Delaunay takes colour relativity as her subject. Colliding oppositional colours pop and vibrate, while intersecting harmonious colours blend and shimmer.
Back in my Sydney studio, I explored colour interactions with watercolour. Assembling the small geometric shapes in a compressed linear format added technical challenge.