JACQUELYN ROYAL | THE NEW POLICE
February 28–May 16, 2020
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, February 28, 5 -7pm
form & concept is delighted to announce the return of needlepoint artist Jacquelyn Royal in her first solo show at the gallery, following two group exhibitions in 2018 and 2019. Royal’s The New Police marks the first show in form & concept’s Atrium Series, an array of ambitious solo displays in the gallery’s atrium space by artists who utilize the craft medium for bold storytelling. An opening reception will be held on Friday, February 28, 5-7pm.
In her series of urban needlepoint studies, Royal asks viewers to re-examine our ideas surrounding both graffiti and folk art as mediums. Royal, working from a high-resolution image of a cityscape, captures sunworn advertisements, years of graffiti layers and urban decay in hand-dyed yarn (sometimes using up to fifteen different shades of white to perfectly capture a sky).
Since the early days of her career Royal has worked methodically, stitch by stitch, but the art professor has more recently embraced the speed and broad strokes of street art in her needlepoint by adapting the chaotic compositions and wild colors of the form. In this way, Royal strives to not only translate the captured graffiti in textile, but also dynamically mirror the illegal activity in her approach. Just as street art frees its canvas from its original intended state, Royal interferes with the captured image she works from, intuitively reacting with each movement of her hand.
Jacquelyn Royal’s textile work has been exhibited and published internationally. Recent exhibitions include the Textile Biennial in the Netherlands; Thread at Rheged Cultural Center in Cumbria, UK; and Hand / Eye at form & concept in Santa Fe, NM, among others. She currently lives and works as a professor of humanities in Saratoga Springs, NY.