Featured Artist Ande Hall

Artist Ande Hall calls her richly patterned animal images “Fauna Fabrications.” Created by painting directly on fabric stretched over board, her animals are bright and magical. Please visit her website to see more of her art.

 

 

My large fabric paintings of animals have origins that are both expected and unexpected.

 

 

After a long and varied career in veterinary medicine (broodmare medicine, exotic small mammals, shelter medicine, emergency medicine, small animal medicine and surgery), it is not surprising that animals would figure prominently in my art.

 

 

I was also a part time ballroom dance teacher for several years, and during that period I developed a lively ball gown design business. By the time I became a painter I had a sizable collection of leftover fabrics. My lifelong recycling habit and my love of patterned fabric were dual forces that led me to begin experimenting with using patterned fabrics in my art.

 

 

My first projects utilized fabrics as conventional collage elements; then I decided to try covering an entire painting surface with a single sheet of patterned fabric, and then paint on top of it with acrylics of varying opacities.

 

 

It is a technique that is unusual, and may be unique. At least, I haven’t seen anybody else doing what I do. The drawing stage of the process can be extremely crazy-making.

 

 

Getting my image outlines in place on a patterned surface is a special form of self torture I am proud to say I taught myself. Many times I have found myself swearing, “Never again!” while I am trying to draw a dog or a horse onto a sheet of busy paisley fabric.

 

 

But once I start painting in background, thereby defining the figure, I begin forgetting my frustration, and am seduced by the satisfaction and excitement of playing with the pattern. So I do keep doing it again.

 

 

When I started making these fabric paintings, I was drawing from my sizable stockpile of accumulated fabrics. I became so excited about the concept that I started going to fabric stores looking for new fabrics to transform into paintings. So, rather than shrinking my fabric collection, I now have more fabric than ever!

 

 

With each new painting I try to explore some new variation in my “dance” with the patterned fabric. I have so many ideas (and fabrics) awaiting their turn in the realization queue.

 

 

I feel like I am only just beginning to tap the possibilities of this concept. While I am excited about exploring the ideas currently existing in my imagination, I am even more excited about the prospect of ideas that are yet unborn.

 

Artist Ande Hall invites you to follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

 

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