Theory of Patterns , 2015
acrylic on canvas
96 x 72 x 2 in
244 x 183 x 5 cm
Nancy Kozikowski is an American abstract artist working in painting and tapestry design. She is based in New Mexico but established a close relationship with China after being invited to participate in the first “From Lausanne to Beijing International Fiber Arts Biennial” in 2000. From 2007 until 2021, she maintained a studio at Song Zhuang, an artists’ village 15 miles from downtown Beijing. Early in her travels in China, she discovered an ancient silk banner with the image of entwined serpentine dragons from a 2300-year-old Han Dynasty tomb. She felt she was already familiar with this image, as she had previously found it in Bandelier, New Mexico, etched on a rock by Ancestral Pueblo people some 500 years ago. Depicting a more angular pair of entwined snakes, it represents Avanyu, the Puebloan rain god, related to the Meso-American feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl. This and other similarities inspired her ongoing investigation of this universal language, expressed in artistic patterns and symbols across seemingly disconnected cultures. These patterns seem to be embedded in our human DNA, passed down through generations with much the same consistency and variability as our physical traits. She continues to explore patterns and their possibilities, finding abstract means to express the fabric of life.
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