- 266
Daria Krotova
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Daria Krotova
- The Image of the Father
- embroidered with initials in Cyrillic and titled l.l.
- embroidery on textile
- 200 by 200cm, 78 3/4 by 78 3/4 in.
Provenance
The artist's studio
Catalogue Note
'Between the ages of six and seven, my son made a series of drawings of his father. At first, charmed by the beauty of these drawings, their incredible laconism, precision of gesture and position on the sheet of paper I decided to make them more permanent and transferred them on to fabric and started sewing them one by one. It took me over a year to create a series of embroideries, the best of which I later put together to make a wall hanging 4m², a sort of portable exhibition.
These images, united in such a way, reveal to me the complexity of feelings that a human being, innocent and still without guile, experiences towards his idol, sometimes naked and vulnerable, sometimes an actual superhero, but apparently always himself. Whatever cultural references one might find in analysis of this 'exhibition', the Oedipus complex amongst others, I find most powerful the reference to Hamlet, who sees a side to his father no one else can see, indeed no one else really sees him at all. For this reason I have used dialogue from Shakespeare’s play as an epigraph, and I wish this to serve the viewer as a key to reading the work.
I used various natural fabrics and thread, some of which I dyed myself with plants. While turning the drawings into embroideries I sometimes found it difficult to find the right material to correspond to the original image, and I only included those pieces which the original artist approved. This means the work is a true collaborative effort between mother and son.'
These images, united in such a way, reveal to me the complexity of feelings that a human being, innocent and still without guile, experiences towards his idol, sometimes naked and vulnerable, sometimes an actual superhero, but apparently always himself. Whatever cultural references one might find in analysis of this 'exhibition', the Oedipus complex amongst others, I find most powerful the reference to Hamlet, who sees a side to his father no one else can see, indeed no one else really sees him at all. For this reason I have used dialogue from Shakespeare’s play as an epigraph, and I wish this to serve the viewer as a key to reading the work.
I used various natural fabrics and thread, some of which I dyed myself with plants. While turning the drawings into embroideries I sometimes found it difficult to find the right material to correspond to the original image, and I only included those pieces which the original artist approved. This means the work is a true collaborative effort between mother and son.'