If you visited either Art Rotterdam, or the Unfair art fair this year, you couldn’t have missed these works on canvas by Nazif Lopulissa. In previous series, Lopulissa made large gradients on canvas, which he cut up and sew back together to amazing effect; From afar, the works seemed perfectly made; from close up, you’ll find the quality is found in its imperfection; small brushwork mistakes and difference in tension where pieces of canvas are sown together, give his works a human element.
In the current series, he took it a step further. The gradients he made on canvas, have been cut up into small 2cm wide strips of painted canvas, which he weaved through strips of blank canvas of the same size. The works are in different sizes, to different effects, the small, object-like canvases focus the viewer on the , while the larger canvases emphasize composition and image.
It’s hard to grasp the full effect in a photograph, as much of the depth of the overlapping strips of canvas gets lost. But the element of chance and mistake are clearly visible. See, when you weave these works, the tiniest mistake; like pulling the strip to hard, or placing it a bit to far out, is visible over the entire composition, shifting the strips lanes, left or right. It is exactly this that, like in previous series, gives these works this human, vibrant quality.
