Another artist we LOVED at the Old Town Art Fair this weekend was Chris Roberts-Antieau of Manchester, MI, whose work is sold by Red Truck Gallery in New Orleans. She works completely in fabric - all the pieces are appliqued in fabric and thread, not painted (except for the frames, which she hand-paints herself.)
According to the gallery's write-up, this artist is not only prolific but extremely accomplished, having works displayed in the White House (portrait of George Washington), the Boxing Hall of Fame (tribute piece to Sugar Ray Robinson), and the homes of Oprah and various other celebrities. She has shown in over 100 galleries nationwide and many museums as well.
Her pieces are very whimsical and lend themselves to being displayed in any number of types of room, but would obviously fit especially well in a casual, family environment. The subject matter is diverse, ranging from blues singers and somewhat more adult themes to more kid-friendly fare like pets and food. Even the less kid-oriented stuff is still rendered "cute", i.e. King Kong above, by the primitive style though.
The work wreaks of originality and exhuberance, and just on the website, there are a huge number of pieces displayed (only a few of which we saw at the fair - most of the ones that they had there aren't even on the website) This woman must never sleep!
I love that lot of her works are not just focused on one central image, but rather feature lists of some kind (whether it be a list of types of sandwiches or of bad habits to avoid). These lists seem like they would take quite a while to compile, edit, determine appropriate imagery for, and then arrange into a pleasing composition.
You can scroll through a lot of her works at redtruckgallery.com by selecting her name under the "artists" menu. Of course, being fabric, they are even tougher to do justice to online, but they're absolutely still worth a look. You can enlarge them all to see more of the detail and read the words on the works and frames (all of which she hand-paints herself.) She is a wonderful artist whose work I hope I come across again!
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