Charged by personal trauma, Waszak’s textile and sculptural assemblages at Pallas Projects in Dublin expand her artistic vocabulary
Emily Waszak: The Land and Others, Including the Dead review: Intimate reflections on ritual, grief and meditative transcendenceat Imma, I entered a room that felt different from all the rest. Two heavy abstract tapestries dominated the space. Swathes of multitextured fabric, like thick animal fur, were suspended on a pair of dark frames and surrounded by a collection of ritualistic objects: totems, singing bowls, prayer mats and bundles of wooden reeds carefully arranged on the concrete floor.
Another key influence is the artist’s Japanese heritage, from which she draws on the practice-oriented mindfulness of Japanese tea ceremonies, as well as the iconography of Japanese Buddhism. Red cloths, folded into severe angles or otherwise draped around the sculptures, predominate throughout the gallery. At first glance I took them to be aesthetic experiments in origami.
The artist’s sensitivity to the effects produced by offbeat combinations of materials with different tactile properties is one of the factors motivating her success. Waszak’s assemblages are alluring not only for their aesthetic and spiritual qualities but for their unprecious appropriation of wooden blocks, construction-site materials, concrete, metal, straps and synthetic fabrics, where each unlikely substance is transformed by the work’s pilgrimage of sorrow.
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