Craft / Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser: A Journey in Textiles, curated by Peter Haynes, at Cowra Regional Art Gallery, until August 30. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE
Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser was a traveller – she spent part of her childhood living in Japan and then moved to Dűsseldorf, Germany. After five years she returned to Japan.
Ten years later she married Jőrg Schmeisser and they moved to Germany, where she studied Textile Design at the Hamburg Fine Art Academy.
In 1978 They moved to Canberra, where Schmeisser was appointed Senior Lecturer and Head, at the then Canberra School of Art. Amenomori-Schmeisser continued to travel around the world extending her knowledge of textile techniques.
Throughout this period, there was an overall unifying element – her Japanese cultural identity.
Amenomori-Schmeisser was commissioned by the Australian textile company Ascraft Fabrics, in 1981, to design furnishing fabrics. They are clean and seemingly-simple designs, moving across the surface of the fabric, and could be used for a variety of interior purposes. In each, one motif forms the design and it is repeated.
In several larger pieces, titled ‘Coral’, the design is shown in different colour-ways. Screen-printed, they are lively and evoke the surface of water as it plays across the rough surface of coral close to the shoreline.
Many of the later works on show engage the shibori technique, a Japanese manual resist dyeing technique that involves folding, pleating, knotting and binding. As in earlier times, indigo is used, but the artist has also explored other colours.
Amenomori demonstrated her significant textile abilities through the shibori works on exhibit. Many of her more recent works use shibori. She created movement and pattern, on large pieces of linen, this with dye and paint.
Amenomori-Schmeisser died earlier this year, and we are very fortunate to see her work in this exhibition.
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