Contemporary tapestry is a significant visual art medium. In an attempt to break out of the box, my work demonstrates a new approach to textile arts by making textile installations in the shape of “tapestry” pieces.
With a tendency to explore and experiment, and with new media within reach, I question new contexts in art as well as in life and investigate the possibilities of assemblage, arriving at unexpected results and artistic decisions. Contemporary tapestry, like any other applied art and design discipline, has always been close at hand, provoking me to investigate it. I’m inspired by the nature, architecture, and an inexplicable need to synthesize seemingly incompatible parts and materials. The goal is to refresh the medium of tapestry, to come up with a more attractive and desirable approach to it. My work encompasses an investigation of incompatible, discarded materials that cohere into something new in the best way possible, thus acquiring a new form of “life” that offers new ideas that can be worked on further.
My textile mini-installations or textile paintings, as fragments unified into a whole, come into being as I explore textures and materials. This concept is all about recycling and re-creating stuff through this creative contemporary art form, using conventional and unconventional materials that can be investigated and used expressively. Various phases of first my own self-development and awareness and then the physicality of the materials, of the form-in-the-making, bring forth new starting points and approaches, as well as different solutions, with a common graphic language woven through with a certain dose of seriousness and forethought. This always quickly becomes a source of further inspiration for a variety of methods, each one important in its own way.
At first, I explore the possibilities using textile and graphic techniques to create interesting prints. All of this happens without a specific plan.
In the second phase, I observe and search for a connection among certain parts that at first seem incompatible, but that actually create something interesting together. Investigating and experimenting with textures.
In the third phase, I take apart fragments and rotate them, making new combinations until I get an inner confirmation that a particular fragment can speak for itself. My decisions often vary based on my mood. The process is sometimes slow, sometimes faster, depending on how things reveal themselves and cohere into a whole. The inspiration comes in various forms from various sources: nature walks, architecture, books, music, etc.
Nataša Knežević's work has been featured in numerous group shows, including the 6th Triennial Exhibit of Contemporary Tapestry in Novi Sad, Serbia (2017), and the 55th Zagreb Salon of Applied Art and Design in Zagreb, Croatia (2020). She lives in Vukovar, Croatia, where she runs Design Studio Laub. She is a textile artist, book cover designer, and illustrator.
