Barbara Danzi, submitted artwork
Barbara Danzi
Painting
Los Angeles
Barbara Danzi is a Los Angeles-based artist who makes large-scale improvisational abstract quilts. Her approach of freehand cutting each piece of fabric and her complex use of color creates quilts with a painterly aesthetic where the seams appear to be hand drawn lines. Barbara merges her engineering degree and design study with her outdoor adventures to create compelling designs based on organic shapes in the natural world. Besides exhibiting her award-winning quilts around the world, Barbara lectures to quilt and fiber art groups and serves as a curator, juror and judge for exhibits. Barbara is a Juried Artist Member of SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Associates, and a member of Textile Arts Los Angeles, and the Textile Study Group of New York
Works
Barbara Danzi, submitted artwork
I am a textile artist making abstract quilts that hang on the wall. Inspired by winding rivers, twisting roots and the contrast of architecture with nature I freehand cut expressive shapes from fabric using gestural movements. I sketch by freehand cutting figures from black fabric and sewing them together with white fabric. I compose my dynamic designs on a 16’ wall, creating figure/ ground tension, then I sew the fabric pieces together. My seam lines are organic, revealing the hand of the maker, because I avoid the rulers and templates of traditional quilting. The fibers hold meaning from the planters and pickers, weavers and dyers throughout the ages and I honor their history. The texture and drape of the fabric quilt adds a warm and organic sensibility.
