To create her expressive "woven paintings," Lia Cook paints strips of fabric and weaves them together with a computer-aided handloom. Despite the use of high-tech tools, her figures appear lifelike, emphasizing the connection between the sensuousness of cloth and lived experience. In Traces: Big Beach Baby, Cook also uses fabric to suggest humankind's vulnerability and fragility: as the viewer moves closer to the work, an intimate family portrait dissolves into a dense field of threads.
Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery, 2019
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the James Renwick Alliance in honor of Kenneth R. Trapp, curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery (1995--2003)