Merill Comeau
My blogs
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Artist |
| Location | Boston, MA |
| Introduction | I examine themes of decline, regeneration and bloom by collaging large, colorful fabric paintings of flora. I use nature as a metaphor for life, the cacophony and chaos of plant life representing the challenges and puzzles of our shared human experience. My aim is to create a Garden of Eden for tomorrow out of the refuse of today. I am drawn to the discarded – and through my use of recycled material I imbue my work with memory. I bring together incongruous fabrics with past lives: mother-in-law’s blouse, cast off sheets from Salvation Army, plastic mesh bags from garlic bulbs and brightly colored fabric samples. With my patchwork of hundreds of snippets of fabric, I explore the formal elements of landscape painting. In my use of recycled clothing and of sewing construction I pay homage to the history of women patching together bits of fabric to make quilts -- I take traditional “women’s work” techniques and add collage methods creating art that intersects with craft. In my strong palette and “all over” imagery, I owe a debt to the 1970‘s “Pattern and Decoration” movement. |