Sheila Hicks
Sheila Hicks, Evolving Tapestry–Soleil. 1984, wound, tied, and knotted dyed linen. Gift of the artist, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 1995.45a-c.
Sheila Hicks’s bundled threads tempt our hands to reach out and sense just how light and soft they are. Renowned for her textile sculptures, Hicks used wound, tied, and knotted linen to form bouquets of threads, whose pointillist combination of oranges, yellows, and greens evokes flowers, moss, and lichens, and, as suggested by its title, the sun. As we move around the work, these allusions to natural abundance give way to the ordered presentation of ponytails of bound string that form the three separate coils from which the sculpture is built. The transition draws attention to Hicks’s meticulous process, offering new insights into the work’s materiality.
— Teddy Sandler