Victoria Van der Laan, "Invisible Quilt: Yellow on Green"

Artist Statement

Tracing my ancestry through a long line of women who made beautiful and useful things with needle and thread, my work is rooted in tradition while reaching toward innovation. My current work is an abstract interpretation of the traditional art and craft of quilt-making, exploring geometry, nature, and feminism. The painstaking handwork of my forebears never far from my mind as I work, I am committed to elevating the concept of Women's Work and acknowledging its importance in the art world. So often throughout history and still very much today the work of women's hands, hearts, and minds is unseen, overlooked, invisible. This work is often the foundation of men's accomplishments yet women doing the same or better work remain unrecognized. With my work I illuminate this foundation, seeking to reveal the inextricable connection between the traditions of Women's Work and contemporary art and innovation.

Artist Bio

Victoria van der Laan is a visual artist working in Albany, NY. Not a formally trained artist, she developed her skill and artistic sensibility over a lifetime working with fabric and fibers, skills taught to her by her Mother and Grandmother as a child. She came to approach her craft as art in midlife, devoting herself to a fulltime practice in 2017. In 2019 Victoria had her first two-person exhibit at the Roxbury Arts Group, participated in the Catskill Center's Platte Clove Residency in 2018 and 2019, and was chosen as a 2020 Murray Fellow for the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency. Her work has been included in the 2019 and 2020 Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region Exhibitions, 2020 Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Center, and the 2020 Mohawk Hudson Regional Invitational at Albany Center Gallery.

Drawer 5- Invisible Quilt: Yellow on Green, vintage bias tape appliquéd on pieced and quilted cotton, 15.5 x 11.5 inches, 2020, $175