Four Tulips

Helena Hernmarck

1999

Wool

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Contemporary artist Helena Hernmarck weaves textiles that pay homage to centuries-old European tapestry-weaving traditions. But she is equally indebted to pointillist painters such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, who in the late 1800s and early 1900s composed complex imagery with small, multicolored dots. Hernmarck’s careful handling of variously colored weft (horizontal) thread bundles allows her to “paint” with fiber “dots” that only seem to come together when viewed from a distance. These painterly methods underpin Hernmarck’s trademark style, which she calls “superrealism.” She often begins with a photograph of something ordi