Tallulah Terryll
Willow, 2015
Jacquard tapestry
70 x 59 in. approx.
edition of 6

Willow translates the lyrical, abstract layers of stenciled glyphs in Tallulah Terryll’s prints and paintings into a single, continuous woven surface. The tapestry’s imagery emerged from drawings of microscopically enlarged slide samples of the bark of a willow tree. “Willow bark is the precursor to aspirin,” she explains, “and I use it as a reference to the pain relieving qualities of beauty and art.”

Terryll selected the color palette for Willow with an eye toward the weave structure unique to each color: by strategically placing colors that utilize “floats” (threads which seem to hover slightly above the others) in the composition’s foreground, she imparts a surprising degree of dimensionality to the lively, kaleidoscopic rhythms of the tapestry’s surface.