Description
For Tapis magique the artist formed lengths of colourful, pigmented paper pulp, which she coiled into the spiral shape of a rug. Strips of photo-lithographs are integrated into hand-formed coils assembled to form the image of two feet and their wet footprints on a stone. The image is repeated three times around the circumference. Also integrated into the coils are discreet black and white photo-transfers of the artist’s grandmother and aunts.
Statement
I enjoy a seemingly impossible task and Tapis magique was an interesting challenge: how to integrate a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional paper sculpture? Each image of feet needed two lithographs in order to compensate for the loss of image in rolling it under in the strips for the carpet and calculating the curve of each strip was an added complication. I loved how the feet seem to hover and dance. The carpet references the passing on of matriarchal knowledge, the skills of making things. While the title “magic carpet” and the bare feet add another dimension, moving from the realm of domesticity to the realm of fantasy, travel, leisure, fun…
Karen Trask & Don Goodes, 2024