Adrien MatzegHer work is often reminiscent of bright summer afternoons, her lively tablescapes suggestive of a lunchtime setting in an outdoor cafe. But her latest series, After Hoursshe is completely leaving her previous job. Punch needle pieces on black linen depict nocturnal moments as created from memory. The collection, on display in Toronto sketch gallery, is Matzeg’s first physical solo show (she also exhibits her tapestries online). And she draws inspiration from her experiences on a trip to South Korea’s Jeju Island and Japan’s Kyoto.
It was so hot during the days that Matzeg and her partner could only sightsee in the morning and evening. “I had this crazy vertigo the whole trip. That defined the night section of this project,” he explains. “We did more at night because of how uncomfortable it was to go out during the day.” The two had also purchased a new camera that allowed them to use a film-like backdrop. The result: dreamy images of cities at night.
When she returned home, Matzeg also bought a color printer. she printed out her photos, cut them out and stapled them. Images of a 7-Eleven front lit from within, a lantern shining on a wall, and – of course – a portable fan lying prone on an unexplored surface are just a few of the fabric renderings she crafted from these images. One of the most evocative is a taxi that goes into the night. “In Kyoto, the cabs are all these vintage Toyotas with a crown, and they all have different little emblems on the top for the different companies – like a flower clover. They’re so precious.”
Matzeg sources its cotton threads in France and Japan. Black linen was completely new to her. “What Black Linen does is take these scenes from a crazy, busy part of town and everything else just falls away.” Objects and architectural structures sometimes seem to float in the background—Matzeg likes to play with the way she places them on the canvas—in the way that “memory comes to the surface and everything else is just empty space around it,” she explains. “And I think that’s pretty special.”
For Matzeg, rescuing fiber art from the realm of hobby craft is a key consideration. “I deliberately try to elevate the medium in the way I approach it — in the detail, the colors I choose, also how I think about it, which is more like painting.” She shapes her scenes by sculpting shapes and carving colors, rather than relying on line work. This means her architectural subjects are unimaginably tangible, even if they feel like flattened snapshots. It translates the chrome and plastic surfaces of a karaoke bar facade into thread. she blends her loops into smooth gradients. “I think about it more in terms of planes and materials,” Matzeg says.
At After Hours exhibition at Abbozzo Gallery, the works are mounted in shou sugi ban frames (by Superframe) and set against an aubergine-painted wall. Together, they appear as a series of windows into vividly remembered moments — the vivid hues and stark forms of the scenes bursting against their black backgrounds like vivid reliefs. Sometimes, they even gently wrap around the edges of the canvas, blurring the lines between subject and frame. They are presented to excite and inspire until May 30.
All photos courtesy of Abbozzo Gallery.
