By weaving, knitting, braiding, and crocheting a variety of fibers and incorporating commercially available objects, Georgina Valverde (Mexican, b. 1962) explores the visual qualities of line and space in three-dimensional form. For this 12 x 12 exhibition, Valverde created seven free-flowing weavings that appear as an organic whole. As if dripping from the ceiling, each weaving is a cascading assemblage of elements-pins, crocheted forms, synthetic hair-enmeshed in fiber. By focusing on a primary line and including objects, which by their inclusion in the weaving have been stripped of their utilitarian purpose to accentuate their essential form, Valverde creates seductive, minimal structures, at once painterly and sculptural. These structures offer a study of the material contrasts between elements such as the fraying of delicate twine and the heavy-handedness of bulky crocheting. Valverde presents a world where simplicity coexists with chaos, where cool tonality mixes with riotous color, and where the common is as important as the extraordinary.

Valverde’s works often mix the language of homemade crafts with fine-art concerns. It is as if the inner materials of household objects-Styrofoam, polypropylene, washers-were torn from their housing and the home and left dangling for the public to observe and analyze. In her previous work Valverde mixed her own homemade crafts with mass-produced household items-staples, paper towels, and brilliantly colored scrub brushes-to explore the aesthetics and culture of the domestic sphere. Though still using commercially available materials in her recent fiber works, Valverde now explores 1960s minimalist concerns. Unlike minimalist artists’ desires to eliminate representation and the sense of the artist’s hand in the making, she celebrates the rich associations of materials with methods of construction that are sensual, intimate, and experiential. With the constructions’ delicate individual components and overall structure, Valverde imparts a whimsical beauty into the often undervalued sphere of the everyday.