"I build the surfaces of my paintings with hand-sewn assorted fabrics, couched yarns, acrylic medium extruded through a pastry bag, and hand-printed rice paper that is cut into small squares and adhered to the texture, ultimately finishing the work with numerous thin applications of acrylic pigment. Through this multi-layered process my objective is to achieve surfaces that combine both visual pattern with physical pattern working within dramatic value changes and subtle color shifts. Finally, the surfaces are organized and squeezed into one or more of the formal ordering systems.
Although my work is no longer hand-woven, my background stems from a traditional textile education with a strong emphasis on design. I continue to incorporate many historical textile considerations, such as the grid, multiples, repeat patterning, spatial illusions, transparencies and craft. The construction and final quality of the work is often ambiguous to the viewer, prompting numerous questions about the process/processes and time invested. Regardless of size, my intentions are to blatantly “draw” the viewer in with seductive surfaces that invoke exploration.
Outwardly, my work celebrates decoration, but inwardly it represents the meditative qualities of working in layers and the numerous hours of tedious, repetitive actions akin to threading the loom. Emotionally and most importantly, my work addresses the juxtaposition of my personal challenges in dealing with order, control and non-order co-existing in a shared space or time. Visually, this may be seen through a line that cuts across a surface and changes what was deceptively organized only to disrupt the balance, or through a “woozy” grid that only hints at evenly measured space. The words that I sometimes include in my surfaces represent direct messages to myself, not necessarily to be “read” or to be perceived as an attempt at conceptualism, but to act as yet another patterning device keeping the viewer guessing and looking.
My current body of work incorporates floral, leaf and other botanical patterns as devices that represent the “withering” away of significant and vibrant forces."
Erica Licea-Kane, 2007
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