DAYTON, OHIO – Brightly colored pieces of silk hang from the ceiling or drape the walls in The Dayton Art Institute’s newest textiles exhibition, SILK PAINTINGS: A Celebration of Color. On view through January 10 in the Virginia W. Kettering Gallery of Textiles, this contemporary textile exhibition of painted and dyed silks features the work of two Dayton artists, Grete Schioler and Erdemute Yackowsky.

The painting and dyeing of silks is a multifaceted intensive process. Grete Schioler and Erdemute Yackowsky have experimented with producing a multitude of color variations in their work, and each artist has developed a distinctive style.

Schioler, a weaver, studied art and textile science in Copenhagen and Philadelphia and has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Her woolen yarns are colored with natural and synthetic dyes. Fascinated with the multiple range of color variations that could be applied to woven silks, Schioler mastered the art of producing Shibori, a resist dyeing and pleating technique similar to tie-dyeing that originated in Japan during the Edo Period (1615-1868). The pleats are carefully outlined with fine stitches and tightly drawn so the area is protected from the penetration of dyes when it is submerged into a dye vat, thereby creating a linear element of design. In honor of the 2003 celebration of powered flight in Dayton, Schioler has created silk designs that depict the skies, stars and the wondrous worlds beyond.

Yackowsky holds degrees from Germany and the United States and has taught fabric design and production in Europe and the United States.

The exhibition was curated by Suman Shenoi, the Art Institute’s curator of textiles. “Both of these artists have a tremendous amount of talent and a great eye for color,” said Shenoi. “This exhibition will help visitors understand the time-consuming process of painting and tie-dying silks. They will be fascinated by the breathtaking explosions of color in these works.”

In the early 19th century in the United States, paintings on silk were traditionally seen in samplers that were partially water-colored and then embroidered in silk floss. The silk painters were considered as the elite of the artists. In late 19th century Europe, artists like Degas, Signac and Kokoschka experimented with painting on silks with the new French transparent reactive dyes that produced bright beautiful colors on translucent silk. In the early 1920s, Russian émigrés to Paris introduced Gutta (resist) to separate color shapes, and modern silk painting evolved.

Admission to SILK PAINTINGS: A Celebration of Color is free.