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website: americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=6283
A leading member of the contemporary “art quilt” movement, Pamela Studstill’s geometric, pieced fabric constructions are fields of dazzling color. Originally trained as a painter, the artist deftly combines traditional quilt-making techniques with modern scientific color and design theory to create intricate patterns whose vibrant, multihued,
and evolving geometries produce a shimmering effect. “I like all that pattern,” she says; “I like the way it moves. … That shimmering quality is the mark of a successful quilt.” Fascinated by impressionist and neo-impressionist painting methods, the optical mixture of divided color, and the color theories of Johannes Itten, Hans Hofmann, and Josef Albers, Studstill brushes columns of dots, curved and wavy lines, and bricklike strokes of acrylic paint on small squares of opposing solid-color cottons. She is not unique among studio-quilt artists in adding pigments, but few have developed such a rigorous and effective approach. “By painting on my fabrics,” she states; “I achieve a greater range of color and pattern than would be possible by using just solid-colored fabrics.” Return to the Game Changers Gallery