Paravent V (Bamboo Florets Burgandy / Paonazzo)
1 / 3
Paravent V (Bamboo Florets Burgandy / Paonazzo)
2 / 3
Paravent V (Bamboo Florets Burgandy / Paonazzo)
3 / 3

Paravent V (Bamboo Florets Burgandy / Paonazzo)

Atelier E.B’s first paravent was made for The Inventors of Tradition project in 2011, which required a folding screen to break up the exhibition space. With it they discovered an idiom that could serve several purposes, acting a site for collaboration and experimenting with materials, as well as providing a bridge between art and design, painting and sculpture.
The works are functional room dividers and essential changing-room furniture in Atelier E.B’s shop installations. Nonetheless, they are priced as contemporary art, and it is their fine art status that subsidises Atelier E.B’s ethical fashion label. The income they generate provides the resources for lengthy periods of research and experimentation, and allows the price of the garments to remain as low as possible for the consumer.
As a general rule, one side of the paravent is suited to a domestic environment, with pattern and tone used in an appropriately modest way; the other side typically employs more monumental motifs or oversized text works that relate to exhibition display and shop décor.

With one side always printed by Lipscombe and the other painted by McKenzie, the paravents symbolically and physically embody their artistic relationship. Never visible simultaneously except in the thin, colourful strips at their hinged edges, the division encapsulates the independence and interconnectedness of their practices within the collaboration, allowing for dissonance and contradiction without compromising reciprocity. In this the paravents have similar advantages to the quodlibets; by placing contrasting or complimentary material together, the intrinsic sovereignty of each piece is kept intact while new meaning is generated by the juxtaposition. They work together yet remain separate.

2015

Please contact Cabinet Gallery for sales enquires.

Size: 180 × 360cm

Material: Oil on canvas mounted on wood, silkscreen on cotton mounted on wood, steel frame

Photo credits: Jens Ziehe