Geometric Botanicals is the name for a journey of exploration, learning, and discovery that each year grew to include new facets about plant life, especially flowers, and textile art forms in my studio.
This endeavor encompasses both a personal language with geometric and botanical patterns and an extension towards new mediums, including natural dyes and mordants.
It all begins in the garden, since my childhood, I have sought out gardens. I enjoy collecting and tending plants, learning about them, and even experimenting with them.
In my studio, my first surface designs were painted with dyes on silk to create one of a kind textile paintings.
Along with digitally printed artwork, I also worked with french dyes on silk along with silkscreen printing, and gutta resists techniques, stenciling, and shibori (or hand-knotting) of naturally dyed multicolored scarves.
The process of carving the stencil blocks, the placing of the dyes along the gutta resist lines, creating the silkscreens, and steaming the dyed silk was in itself a labor of love. The completed scarves and neckties each have their own story of development from start to finish.
My earliest experiences creating digitally printed scarves consisted of using an in-house inkjet printer onto silk pressed onto waxed butcher paper. The designs based on my paintings reproduced nicely. I used an overlock serger to hem the seams with decorative threads—the scarves sold at the Art Museum Gift Shop.
Subsequently, I created "Geometric Botanicals" as a surface design collection inspired by my work as a painter. In the Fine Arts, I work with acrylic, watercolor, and gouache paints and dyes along with inks for monotypes & monoprints using a printing press.
My work process has continued to evolve through the use of photography and software programs, allowing me to innovate and adapt my paintings and prints, creating new digital compositions in raster & vector formats.
Copyright © 2020 Lorien Suárez - All Rights Reserved.
