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Andrea Donnelly (Photo by Ash Daniel)
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“The Dancer and the Architect”
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“Double Ikat”
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“I Could Talk to You Forever”
Who: Andrea Donnelly
Exhibit: “Theorems and Poems”
Where: Reynolds Gallery
When: Nov. 3-Dec. 22
Andrea Donnelly wants you to get close to her art. Whether it’s fingering the finely wrought threads of her intricate, hand-woven scarfs, or stepping in closer to eye the complex layers of her conceptual fiber-art pieces, Donnelly invites the viewer to examine the process and mechanics behind her work. “I’ve always wanted people to look closer at the work,” she says. “People don’t realize how much love, time and attention goes into it.”
At Reynolds Gallery, Donnelly will be showing a range of her work, from collage pieces she has assembled from cloth she has dyed and woven, to drawings she has created to explore the patterns she weaves into her art.
“I am looking at pattern as a language…,” she explains. “It is all about the idea of a hidden language, a subliminal language, and what that tells us about ourselves in the interpretation of it … There are elements of the poetic [in the work], but purely because of the process, there’s also this element of rigor and structure. The work is a nod to my love of learning and understanding how to make something do what I want it to do.”
Donnelly has been busy in her Manchester studio. In addition to her show at Reynolds, her art is on display in Raleigh at the North Carolina Museum of Art in a solo exhibit, “We’ve Met Before,” running through Jan. 28. Donnelly also has created a large piece for the inaugural show at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art, opening this spring, and will sell her scarves at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond’s annual Craft + Design show Nov. 17-19.
Donnelly was a student at North Carolina State University when she decided to take a textiles class for fun. “It spoke to me and provoked a lot of questions,” she says. “I was immediately interested in the way cloth can be tied to the body.” Donnelly hasn’t stopped working with textiles since, earning a master’s in fiber arts from VCU.
Donnelly is the rare artist who toggles between creating conceptual and functional art. She says she is as serious about her wearable creations as she is about her gallery pieces. “The functional work is a place to play with design choices without any of the conceptual stuff,” she says. “It is nice to make something people can touch. Cloth is such a seductive, physical medium.”
“Knocking on Art's Door,” KonKons, mixed media, 3 by 3 by 3 inches.
Don't Miss: “Think Small 9” is Artspace’s biennial miniature invitational exhibit featuring the work of hundreds of artists from Richmond and beyond showing work across four galleries. Curated by Santa De Haven. Through Dec. 17. 0 E. Fourth St. 804-232-6464 or artspacegallery.org.
