Born and raised an artist, Kirstin Ilse attended all the great universities and academies as only an autodidact would. Hand pulling prints; tightening strings of tensegrity structures; philosophy; drafting tables; famous artists; painting; textiles and sewing; -all basic training growing up. It was a fluke, somebody tipped her off one day the Harvard stock room was “dumping silk dyes and supplies cheap” after a class had been cancelled. It took years to master painting on silk, but it only took a moment to get hooked on the luminosity and tonal dimensionality it produces. Kirstin Ilse has painted fire on silk for over thirty-five years.
About
I wanted to find the stillest place on earth. In the woods, standing on the edge of the water, I wanted to feel so quiet that I could see the ripple of a sound on the water’s surface.
I made this body of work in layers of material that shine and dash the light in optical effects on traditional hand work in fiber and paint. These materials include wood, holographic vinyl, protein dyed/steam set silk, acrylic mediums, interference hue paint, and anything else I feel like trying.
The ripples are cymatic waves, water’s response to sound organizing molecules. They are made on a regular speaker by resting a saucer with water, placing a ring light above them and photographed with a cell phone. I place the shapes of these ripples in the light reflecting off a body of water in the woods, reflecting trees and sky, the surrounding nature.