December 11, 2020 – February 3, 2021
Roll Up Project is pleased to present new work by San Francisco-based artist Ricki Dwyer.
Dwyer’s experiments in weaving shine in these technically-complex compositions. Conditions of Consciousness Formation (2020), a long panel of handwoven fabric draping elegantly over a cable wire, fills the Harrison Street window. While it may appear to the passing viewer as two intertwined swaths of fabric, it is composed of a single panel of double-weave cloth where both sections are woven simultaneously. With any slight breeze, the panels shift and move, hinting at a natural landscape like our nearby waterfront at sunset. These intermingling opposites – one tightly-woven in peach and pink, the other in a loose and draped blue and white stripe – suggest two elements coming together to form a whole.
Two sculptures fill the Third Street windows: Cap Moon (2020) and First Impressions (2020). Cap Moon features a handwoven cloth draped over a globe lamp. Text reading “The Celibate Slut” is embroidered across the surface in a jaunty script. Suspended by three strands of ball-chain, First Impressions features a barbed wire pattern that jumps from the textile into the air, transforming from a woven element to a sculptural metal piece. The pattern could alternately be viewed as a daisy chain or interlocking palm trees set against a fiery sunset backdrop.
Together, the works explore the many ways textiles inhabit space – they can be gauzy and fluid, or tensed and strained, or something in between. Seen from different perspectives, they can reveal new interpretations. These stances also relate to how we inhabit spaces and pose ourselves, sending coded messages through both posture and sartorial selections.
About the Artist
Ricki Dwyer’s practice uses the dynamic qualities of textiles to explore and describe interpersonal relationships. Dwyer holds a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design, and an MFA from UC Berkeley. Their work has been displayed in the Bay Area at Root Division, Artists Television Access, Guerrero Gallery, and BAMPFA, among others. Dwyer has been an artist-in-residence at AZ West in Joshua Tree, Standard Projects in Hortonville, WI, and Recology in San Francisco. They teach printmaking in the textiles department of California College of the Arts and are a fellow in the Art Practice Department of UC Berkeley. They live and work in San Francisco, CA.
Learn more about their work at ricki.website.
ON VIEW IN THE HARRISON ST. WINDOW
Conditions of Consciousness Formation, 2020
cotton, dye, cable wire, turnbuckles
approx. 72 x 84 x 6 inches
photo courtesy of artist
ON VIEW IN THE THIRD ST. WINDOWS
First Impressions, 2020
cotton, dye, steel, aluminum, ball chain, plinth
approx. 48 x 42 x 18 inches
photo courtesy of artist
