At “Woven Narratives,” an exhibit of fiber art at MCC on Main Gallery in Manchester, Leslie Giuliani’s brightly colored work beckons from across the room. Upon closer inspection, the witty visuals stand out. But up close, what stands out is the description of the media: “encaustic, embroidery, silkscreen and monoprint on microfiber.”
Giuliani, of Weston, explained the unusual combination. “Working with encaustic, you need a rigid surface, otherwise it’ll crack. Then I found a new microfiber material that you can paint on with encaustic and it remains flexible,” she said. “With my embroidery, I always had to do it on some kind of cloth that’s not good to paint on. Now I can embroider on this new microfiber and paint.”
So Giuliani paints her fabrics, then embroiders or silkscreens on them, or sometimes uses a digital printing computer to transfer images.
“Every day I can do something different, print one day, embroider another day, paint another day,” she says. “It keeps it fresh and funny and a little scary.”
Funny is what stands out. Her works have titles like “Roswell,” “Take Me to Your Leader,” “The Physical World,” and combine cartoonish images of aliens, girls, leaves, macaroni, a pair of hands and odd geometric shapes in asymmetrical quilt patterns. “I love science and history and fairy tales. A lot of the imagery really relates to those interests than anything about art,” she said.
Three smaller items by Giuliani in the exhibit come from an earlier series she created, of digital embroidery on linen. “Little Inuit” and “Little Devil” use the same cartoonish imagery, and “Tiny Herd” shows two horses, or maybe it’s one horse and its shadow.
Other artists in the show are Peggy Dembicer, Ed Johnetta Miller, Constance Old, Barbara Solomon, Rita Valley and Colin Burke. Burke’s large-scale “Shopping Cart” is another standout, a cyanotype-on-cotton, blue-tone photograph of two shopping carts printed on a bedsheet.
WOVEN NARRATIVES will be in the Dehn Gallery at MCC on Main, 903 Main St. in Manchester, until Aug. 27. Gallery hours are Monday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday to Friday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday noon to 6 p.m. manchestercc.edu/mcc-on-main.
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