FIBERWORKS - A CELEBRATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN
FIBER AND TEXTILE ARTISTS

Title: The Garden of Inner Harmony

Description: This work of multi-layered fabrics illustrates my passion for colour and texture, and represents the peace and harmony that comes from working and relaxing in my tropical Natal garden.

I have used silks hand-dyed with Arashi Shibori techniques to create the subtlety of the background to demonstrate my feelings of inner peace, while the embroidered embellishments are worked over lace, which have been coloured with sublistatic dyes.

The composition is my interpretation of both the sights and the sounds within my garden, where the central swathe of embroidered stitches reminds me of the song of birds and the rustle of leaves in the wind.

Title: Nightborne Flame

Description: (Carolyn moved house between the Garden of Inner Harmony and Nightborne Flame.) I lives in the high rolling grasslands of Kamberg as they sweep across to the Drakensberg mountains, where our winters are sunny, dry, and very cold at night. This is when natural veldt fires sweep across the landscape. In spring the burnt areas become beautiful carpets of grasses and rich, colourful flowers.

Occasionally runaway fires happen which are a danger to life and property, especially when they happen at night!

I recently experienced one of these night runaways on our property, and they are quite terrifying. The flames reach into the sky, borne along by capricious winds, with sparks flying in all directions, while the shadows of friends and neighbours helping to douse the fires appear in brief flashes.

All very dramatic but at the same time quite inspirational. I have tried to capture this in “Nightborne Flame”: the flames, the sparkle and the smoke drifting across the moon, the vivid chaos and strength of the fire, but also the beauty that follows.

Title: And then there was Light

Description:

Title: Kamberg 1 – A brief moment in time.

Description: This work is the first of a series of textile works called "Marks on the Landscape" – in the form of a pictorial narrative.

The Kamberg is an area of outstanding natural beauty in the South African Drakensberg. However the landscape is under pressure due to a vast dam about to be built for Durban water users.

Historical sites such as Rock Art of the San people, graves of the indigenous people’s ancestors, old traditional Natal farmhouses, as well as the Inchbrakie falls, a beautiful waterfall, will all be flooded. Flora and fauna, including buck, cranes and storks, will lose their habitats.

In "a brief moment of time" a landscape that has stood for thousands of years will be changed forever by man’s ability to create chaos out of order!

This piece shows the hills and grasslands of Kamberg – with the dam and its wall in the middle distance and a darkening sky above.

Carolyn Zelenka
P.O.Box 55
Rosetta

3301

Cell: 0826780066
Phone: 27(0)33 2677959

Email: carolynzel@iafrica.com