Grethe Sørensen's installation Water Mirror consists of five large wall tapestries and a multimedia projected video installation. This eponymous series of tapestries are inspired by light reflections off water as observed by the artist in the Venice canals, Tokyo Bay and Danish waters.

Sørensen profitably uses textile art to create an optical perspective resulting in a series of vibrating weavings of light phenomena derived from nature and computer technologies. Her fascination with the phenomenon of light and water give a whole new life to the textile medium from an impressionist point of view. Like many of the other installation artists I have researched, her work speaks of the intersection between the seemingly distinct worlds of the digital and the natural, something I am also interested in. I also think that the use of textiles with the projected imagery is extremely effective and appeals to the human sense of touch, creating another level of interactivity.

While at distance the tapestries may appear quite similar to photographs, they become significantly different on closer inspection. The woven pixels provoke a vibrating illusion of three-dimensionality in which the light reflections are modulated into soft and vaporous reliefs through the artist’s virtuoso use of threads in cotton, wool and polyester. Time seems to gain a slow pace as the beholder gradually discovers the amazing richness of detail in the weavings, in which each pixel is translated into threads. Yet, within this myriad of points, Grethe Sørensen demonstrates her great sense of composition and control, creating timeless images of ephemeral light, not unlike Georges Seurat’s quiet, yet majestic pointillist paintings.

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