BEAUTY: Fiber Art--Jacqueline Surdell

Chicago artist Jacqueline Surdell uses rope as her primary medium to create stunning, large scale woven pieces. Also seen in the mix: fabric, zip ties, hooks, weights and dumbells, and various industrial objects. They are at once powerful and gently lyrical. The dichotomy is explained in her Artist Statement:

"As a Chicago native, my work is inspired by the industrial history of the city in relation to forces of labor and how they relate to social, cultural and economic movements, locally and globally. Watching my Polish grandfather work in Hegewisch’s steel mills in the Southside of Chicago, while spending time with my Dutch grandmother who spent most of her time as a landscape painter, I grew up in a dichotomous environment between blast furnaces, melting pits and manual labor, and prairie lands, paintings of wildflowers and artistic vision. Eventually, I developed a practice where art and craft, life and work, body and labor, industry and artistic vision, live in unity."

https://www.jacquelinesurdell.com/