Schreckhise's Textile Work Reflects 'Tension' of Current Era
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Untitled (mohair silk blend yarn, elastic cord with plastic stop, and lock, crochet layered over silk hand-sewn mask, lined with dupioni silk, 2020) is one of several masks in Suzannah Schreckhise’s Breath series, and on display in Tension and Protection.
Crochet and Recycled Fabric Pieces on Display in Tension and Protection
Suzannah Schreckhise
A collection of new and recent textile works by multimedia visual artist Suzannah Schreckhise is now on view in ASC’s latest exhibition. The exhibition opens with a drop-in reception from 5-7 p.m. Dec. 2.
A collection of new and recent textile works by multimedia visual artist Suzannah Schreckhise is now on view in ASC’s latest exhibition. Tension And Protection: Textile Work by Suzannah Schreckhise combines the Fayetteville artist’s crochet series and her ongoing mask series, Breath.
Tension And Protection: Textile Work by Suzannah Schreckhise combines the Fayetteville artist’s crochet series and her ongoing mask series, Breath. With crochet, Schreckhise experiments with color and creates intentionally asymmetric pieces.
Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, the mask series Breath brings beauty to a utilitarian, and now commonplace, object.
“In times of isolation, a sense of comfort and place feel especially important; and yet, during these times, tension is extremely high,” Schreckhise said. “Textile art has become the perfect visual representation of the strangeness and tension of this time, and as such, I have brought two of my artwork series together to give voice to this very tension: what it looks like, what it feels like, and how it helps push us to change.”
Schreckhise created the masks in her Breath series with crochet and recycled fabrics.
Untitled; wool yarn, printed silk Indian ribbon layered over acrylic painting, upholstered over foam board; 30 inches by 40 inches; 2020
“I have made several usable masks out of fabrics with personal history, therefore bringing together materiality, texture, and color to evoke specific times and places,” she said. “This also fosters a sense of timelessness and togetherness in the midst of isolation, shifting a practical object into something fresh and meaningful: artwork that speaks both to the value of tension and the relief when we dissolve into the soft material it can help create.”
With her mask series, Schreckhise “takes a mundane and ubiquitous object and transforms each into wearable, functional art,” said ASC Curator Jessica Lenehan. By using recycled materials for the masks, “this repurposing imbues the masks with sentiment that speaks to how masks themselves have already absorbed our memories of this moment in history,” Lenehan said.
Untitled; vintage fabric, silk wool-blend yarn, silk cord, metal tips, hand-sewn embroidery, folded origami butterflies, crochet, lined in gray silk dupioni drapery; 2020
Tension and Protection also includes wall-hung pieces created by layering crochet over completed acrylic paintings.
“The texture and color of the fibers interlock in a series of knots as I stretch the crochet work and mount it over the paintings, luminous between stitches,” Schreckhise said. “The colors of the paint and texture of the yarn meander between stimulating, vibrating color and more calming hues. As these pigments interact, they absorb and transmit different wavelengths of light, producing a variety of tones, hues, shades, and depths of color, and suggesting different emotions. The crochet layered over the painting intensifies the textural sensory experience, which in turn evokes childhood memories of handcrafted domestic items.”
This exhibition isn’t the first time Schreckhise’s works have been displayed at ASC. She was one of the artists featured in the 2019 multimedia group exhibition Our Front Porch, which included one of her sculptures. Inspired by her grandmother’s house, Homage to Perrys took meaning from Dia de Muertos traditions and visuals rooted in the southern Depression era.
She also led a workshop during an art camp session that summer, guiding students in making their own altars to celebrate their individual family histories.
“I was so impressed with the skills the young artists had been taught and their ability to concentrate for a three-hour class,” she said. “They were engaged and happy and interested.”
Schreckhise was one of four artists featured in the group exhibition Arkansas Women to Watch 2021: Paper Routes, which made a stop at ASC in summer 2021. With Who Belongs on Our Money?, Schreckhise illustrated $1 bills in varying skin tones to reflect the diversity of races and ethnicity across the United States.
“I painted over 100 different skin tones to call attention to and celebrate how beautiful different colors are next to each other,” she explained.
That piece — originally on view at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum (RAM)’s 2019 annual invitational — led to her first solo show. As part of her first-place award at RAM’s invitational, the museum hosted her Attention to Tension exhibition in late 2020 through early 2021. Several pieces from that show can be seen in Tension and Protection.
Another one of Schreckhise’s recent accomplishments is receiving an Artists 360 grant in 2020. Artists 360 is a program providing grant funding and professional development opportunities to individual artists of all disciplines in Northwest Arkansas.
With the grant, Schreckhise is creating a new series of masks and collecting oral histories for a collection called nwaMASKproject.
For the project, Schreckhise sought materials from participants in and near Northwest Arkansas. The fiber materials and items held personal significance for them — items with compelling stories.
Schreckhise and poet Molly Bess Rector conducted interviews with those participants.
Then, taking into account the culmination of the item, interview, and personalities of the participant, Schreckhise will create a fiber sculpture mask in honor of each participant. After the masks are on view in exhibitions, each mask will be gifted to the participant. They will also receive a professional photo portrait. A website will document the process and showcase the masks, stories, and a digital magazine.
The nwaMASKproject works will be on display in 2022 at Schreckhise’s alma mater, the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, in a solo exhibition.
Tension and Protection: Textile Work by Suzannah Schreckhise is on display in ASC’s International Paper Gallery through March 5, 2022. This exhibition is supported in part by the Arkansas Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas Endowment Fund.
Read more about Schreckhise and see more of her work on her website, suzannahschreckhise.art. Follow her on Instagram at @suzannahschreckhiseart.
