Foray into chromatic zones

Sheila Hicks’ exhibition at the Hayward Gallery Project Space, in London, shows her recent large-scale works and a selection of fibre-based calligraphic works.

Sheila Hicks. Baoli, <i>Sunset Pavilion Inhabited</i>, 2015, acrylic fibres. Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Photo by Cristobal Zanartu

Renowned for blurring boundaries between textile traditions, art, design and architecture, Sheila Hicks has distinguished herself over the past five decades as one of the most influential figures in contemporary art working with supple materials.

Hicks has always paid homage to age-old indigenous manual practices in formmaking, thus allowing her works to have a distinctive voice in modernist abstraction.

Sheila Hicks, <i> Cordes Sauvages / Hidden Blue</i>, 2014 (Detail). Cotton, wool, linen, silk, bamboo, synthetic, 250 x 70 x 70 cm. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London and Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris. Copyright the artist. Photo: Michael Brzezinski — **Top**: Sheila Hicks. Baoli, *Sunset Pavilion Inhabited*, 2015, acrylic fibres. Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Photo by Cristobal Zanartu. **Above**: Sheila Hicks, *Cordes Sauvages / Hidden Blue*, 2014 (Detail). Cotton, wool, linen, silk, bamboo, synthetic, 250 x 70 x 70 cm. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London and Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris. Copyright the artist. Photo: Michael Brzezinski

Much of Sheila Hicks’ site-specific work responds to and animates the surrounding architecture, offering a compliment and contrast to the hard, structural materials with her soft, pliable installations. Hicks has created an environment in the Hayward’s Project Space as a response to the gallery’s unique location and design which houses Dan Graham’s Waterloo Sunset Pavilion. Through the curved, translucent walls of the Pavilion, Hicks’ brightly coloured masses of pigmented fibres will be clearly visible to the passing traffic on Waterloo Bridge.

Within the Project Space, visitors can interact with recent large-scale works such as The Baôli Chords, Cascade Turquoise and Palitos Con Bolas, while discovering the cityscape of London. In addition, a selection of Hicks’ fibre-based calligraphic drawings will be presented along with her Minimes: intimate
weavings, which the artist has made throughout her career. A selection of studies of Hicks’ commissions for architecture are also included in the exhibition, along with related material for her Ford Foundation tapestries in New York – first realised in 1967, and re-created in 2013/14.

During her travels as a Fulbright scholar through South America in 1957-8, Hicks photographed and documented archeological sites and indigenous weavers, while also painting and teaching at the architecture faculty of the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. In her 50-year career, colour, texture and structure have been integral to Hicks’ work, a result of her training in Bauhaus principles at Yale University.

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Sheila Hicks, Cordes Sauvages / Hidden Blue, 2014 (Detail). Cotton, wool, linen, silk, bamboo, synthetic, 250 x 70 x 70 cm. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London and Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris. Copyright the artist. Photo: Michael Brzezinski

Sheila Hicks, Cordes Sauvages Pow Wow, 2015, linen, cotton, acrylic fibres, size: variable. Photo Cristobal Zanartu

Left: Sheila Hicks, Cordes Sauvages Pow Wow, 2015, linen, cotton, acrylic fibres, size: variable. Photo Cristobal Zanartu. Right: Sheila Hicks, Nomad Treasure Bales, 2014-15, linen, cotton, acrylic fibres, 60 - 86 cm. Photo Cristobal Zanartu

Sheila Hicks, Cordes Sauvages Pow Wow, 2015, linen, cotton, acrylic fibres, size: variable. Photo Cristobal Zanartu

Sheila Hicks, Drawing with Fiber IV, 2014. Fiber, 30.5 x 40.6 cm. © Sheila Hicks courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

Sheila Hicks, Drawing with Fiber I, 2014. Fiber, 30.5 x 40.6 cm. © Sheila Hicks; courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

until April 19, 2015
Sheila Hicks
Foray into chromatic zones
curated by Stephanie Rosenthal and Dominik Czechowski
Hayward Gallery Project Space
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London

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Foray into chromatic zones

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