Panda Landa "Portal V" Hand-Dyed Fabric, Arch Textile Wall Art in Coral and Blush, California Desert Art, Original 16 X 22 Inches, 2024

Details

Description

In this hand-dyed fabric textile wall art by Joshua Tree artist Panda Landa, a tall arch of dyed cloth rises … Read more In this hand-dyed fabric textile wall art by Joshua Tree artist Panda Landa, a tall arch of dyed cloth rises from the bottom edge, orange-red on its left shoulder and softening through coral to pale blush on the right, its two feet in pink tie-dye. Inside the arch lies an open field of cream, and outside it a lightly mottled oatmeal ground, so the shape reads as a doorway with nothing yet beyond it. The color changes where one cloth meets the next, with no blending, which keeps the arch honest and handmade. Panda Landa works with second-hand fabric and hand-dyeing, and the happy accidents of the dye bath, uneven color and soft cloudiness, are kept rather than corrected. Seams show quietly along the curve.

An arch is a gentle way to open up a wall. Hang this one over a bed, in an entry or at the end of a hall, where the cream interior and coral curve will read as a doorway. It sits beautifully with warm whites, rattan, light oak and terracotta, and works equally well in a modern farmhouse bedroom or a spare, gallery-like living room.

Hand-dyed fabric on stretcher bars, 16 x 22 x 0.75 in (40.6 x 55.9 x 1.9 cm). Unframed.

Panda Landa builds each piece from second-hand fabric that is dyed by hand, then cut and sewn together by instinct and improvisation, letting the composition develop naturally. Seams join the cloths into bands, arches, triangles and spirals, and the dye is left to pool and bloom, so the mottling in each cloth stays part of the surface. The sewn panel is stretched over wooden stretcher bars about three quarters of an inch deep and is unframed.

Panda Landa (b. 1982) is a queer, non-binary visual artist and filmmaker raised in the Nevada desert and now based in Joshua Tree, California. Self-taught, they work through instinct and improvisation, making mixed-media textile pieces from second-hand fabrics that are dyed by hand, stitched and stretched over frames. Sustainability is central to the practice, and every cloth arrives with its own history.

Their ongoing series, including PORTAL, ALTAR, ECLIPSE, VESSEL and RITUAL, touch on queerness, identity, ancestral narrative, healing and transformation, and more recent beaded panels carry short, tender phrases in color. Landa made the 2022 film In the Middle of Everywhere and has offered a workshop on giving new life to clothes at the Joshua Tree Music Festival. See less