Red Sky Warnings – Tahlia King
In Red Sky Warnings artist Tahlia King creates abstracted exterior and interior scenes depicted in wool woven through acrylic. There is a tension – an ominous atmosphere – about these artworks, reflected in the contrasts of hard and soft materials and a foreboding red palette. That fragility in the presented structures and mediums speaks to the capricious, unpredictable nature of life on the near horizon.
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.
— Proverb
The open Waitaha Canterbury skyline is an ever-present feature in our landscape. For King this is not only a source of beauty, but also a reflection of power beyond our control – be that good or bad, but never permanent. These works balance regimented structure and natural imperfection, constraint and creation. Elements that weave through the tides of human life.
Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
— Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare
Read more about this body of work in our City Art Reader interview online here.
