BARK

I often find inspiration in the forest: nowhere else do you see such a great variety of textures and contrasts: tree trunks, moss, bark, grass, stone, and earth. The soft surface meets the hard, dark light; textures are intertwined, repeated in an infinite pattern, only broken up by a broken branch or a mushroom hat sticking out. The fascinating thing is the tree's bark: some spots are like cracked skin or dried clay, and in some places, it is thin and smooth, glistening in the light, here and there, covered with moss or eaten up by beetles. Magnified, it is reminiscent of a landscape, an unknown map of valleys, mountains, rivers, and lakes.

After many years of working with the jacquard weave, I turned my gaze to what is not easy to reproduce by just weaving. I have lately worked a lot on processing textiles afterwards: cut into threads, pull them out, and dissolve. It is how I also built this motif: working in layers of the different shadows of yarns. Ultimately, I cut up and loosened the last layer to approach the feeling of moss over the wood.

This work was selected for juried exhibitions SKOG (en FOREST), Skien, Norway and BeCRAFT, European Prize for Applied Arts 2021, Belgium.

Jacquard woven piece woven by Kristina Austi.
Materials: Wool, viscose, polyester.
Size: 150x240 cm
Year of production: 2020

Photographer of the work: Eivind Senneset.