Vintage and new Venetian glass, concrete, pigment.
Diptych 13x30x2.5cm.
2024.
In the diptych Colour study: Festival (after Bernat Klein) Joanna Kessel explores the colour palettes of the renowned Serbian born, Scottish textile designer Bernat Klein. She re-interprets the soft undulations of the warp and weft of natural and manmade yarns into the hard, angular forms of hand-cut glass tesserae, encapsulated in pigmented concrete.
Kessel has long been fascinated by the repetitive cellular structures of woven tapestry and the similarities that weave structures share with mosaic – viewing these as erratically gridded fields of articulated fragments.
She is interested in how our perception of a material and / or inherent colour can appear to alter when viewed in proximity to another and the dynamic relationship between the tesserae and the spaces in-between. When separated, the sculptural quality of each tessera comes into vision.
Klein evidently also appreciated the correlation between weave and mosaic – spending one summer personally applying glass tesserae to panels on the front elevation of his family home High Sunderland.
The diptych exists as a wall sculpture, referencing art, craft and architectural practices. Concept and process are of equal value, both inform, both are in dialogue and together they create a distinctive, contemporary visual language.
