Maris Van Vlack

Lives and works in Massachusetts, USA

Artist statement

As an interdisciplinary artist working with textiles and paint, I use my work to question what it means for a landscape to exist in the past through the memories of those who once lived there. My work explores the landscape through large-scale woven pieces that depict architectural forms in surreal surroundings. The images I create with fibers draw inspiration from the archived family photographs depicting spaces where my family has lived, as well as stone structures from the New England landscape where I grew up. I build my pieces by slowly hand-weaving panels of fabric thread by thread, then collaging them together to form large tapestries with a process that is similar to the construction of the architectural forms that they depict. I then layer woven surfaces with knitting, paint, and embroidery, obscuring the original images in a way that mimics how architecture decays and is bruised with time, taking on a new form that represents the history and events that have occurred within that space. I use textiles to create this work because the techniques are linked to family history, time, and craft culture, and are an important grounding element for my work.

Artwork