Amazing Urban Quilts by Amy Ahlstrom
The care and technique that goes into a handmade quilt is second to none, but the aesthetic often leans towards the floral and traditional…
Not so with the “urban quilts” of Amy Ahlstrom, which are hyper-modern and bold examples of fiber art. “Drawing upon her background as a graphic designer and comix illustrator, Amy digitally photographs the visual details of cities—street art, signs, and architectural details—and collages these images via computer into quilt designs. The resulting quilts, crafted of raw silk and cotton, are tactile visual postcards of urban environments. “
Amy’s artist statement says:
My quilts are influenced by pop-art painters such as Mark Ryden and artists who have referenced a comic-strip drawing style such as Margaret Killgallen, in that I appreciate bold and graphic takes on images that are inspired by urban life. Though it is textile art rather than drawing or painting, my work is most comparable to that of pop, lowbrow and graffiti artists. My quilts are modern art pieces that happen to be rendered in fabric. I take quilts out of a rural context and bring them into present-day urban environments. My ReMix series of quilts are thematically and visually dense, full of sampled layers of meaning. They reflect the experience of city life, as seen through the graffiti, signs, and buildings present in every city. They serve as an anthropological record of an urban neighborhood, in that the images that I capture are constantly in a state of flux.
Chris
