RSA Scottish Art
Video Quilt Thanka
 | Artist: George Donald |
| Title: Video Quilt Thanka | |
| Year: c. 1973 | |
| Medium: painted and quilted cotton | |
| Dimensions: | |
| Suggested topic: | |
| Source: RSA | |
| View full screen image of this work | |
| Open print version of this work | |
| © the artist | |
| Description: George Donald has always been passionately interested in the study of anatomy, and figurative work is the main theme used in his varied artworks.The influence of the east (especially India, where he was born) is profound in all of Donald's work. Strong, hot colours, dense textures, and a love of patterns and rhythms are dominant elements. This quilt, Video Quilt Thanka (A Thanka is a Tibetan Buddhist religious painting, which was usually painted in intensely rich colours on cloth), is created from padded cotton that has been painted and screen-printed. It combines references to the east and to the Pop Art of Andy Warhol. Most of the central part of the quilt is taken up with repeat images of a woman's face in different colour combinations. Some of these images are also dotted or striped, which resembles the effect of video images breaking up. This piece has a richly textured surface emphasised by the hot palette and bold brush strokes which compliment the graphic print elements. The woman's face seems to change slightly in each square, as though we are seeing a frame-by-frame breakdown of a video. You can follow the squares in any direction and see a succession of different images. The composition is simple but very relevant to the subject. Video breaks an image up into tiny pieces, and this quilt shares this notion of gridding. This piece could also relate to the idea of a game - there are 64 squares in an 8x8 grid, just like a chess board. No part of the composition is given greater importance than any other - each square is an equal element in the arrangement. | |
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