Artwork Details
- Title
- By the Sea
- Artist
- Date
- 1987
- Location
- Dimensions
- 96 1⁄2 x 47 1⁄2 x 5 3⁄4 in. (244.5 x 120.6 x 14.7 cm.)
- Credit Line
- Gift of KPMG Peat Marwick
- Mediums Description
- sewn and woven sisal, linen, and wool
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Abstract
- Landscape — coast
- Object Number
- 1993.54.1
Artwork Description
My interest was in creating something that would hang on the wall but project beyond the wall, involve my viewer. But I didn't want to paint. . . . I really wanted the loom to help me produce that.
--Adela Akers
Adela Akers grew up by the sea in Havana, Cuba. She developed this interactive woven structure to set into motion the choreography of color, light, and shadow across a seascape over time. When By the Sea is viewed from the right, the grey glow of morning light radiates across the deep turquoise water and the mountain peaks of a distant island. When viewed from the left, an evening sky absorbs much of the light, except the faint glow of a jutting rock and its reflection on the inky sea surface. As you walk from one end to another, only the purple horizon line remains constant. Each of the thirty-two panels was individually woven in Akers's signature dense style--with a rigid sisal warp (the vertical threads) and tightly pulled wool wefts (the horizontal threads)--and sewn together into the accordion form.
Exhibitions
