Amrita Raja : Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
My mother loved to sew and when I was little, I remember going to fabric stores and running around, my fingers grazing the rolls of velvets, silks and satins that lined the aisles. My favorite patterns, even at that age, were the damasks.
In this wallcovering, I wanted to update the classic damask pattern; the modern twist is not just the newer, brighter color scheme, but also the method of generating the pattern. Traditional damasks are based on floral and fauna-inspired themes. Like the Victorians fascinated by the expanse of natural landscape, I believe today's society has been enthralled with the thought of communication across thousands of miles made possible by technology. For this reason, I used words to generate the imagery in this wallcovering: morphed and reshaped to create the complex lines that form the damask pattern, a technique that depicts the endless visual potential within the writing of words.
- Amrita Raja |