Petra Fallaux

Dutch native Petra Fallaux is an artist, writer, and curator, based in Pittsburgh, PA. As an artist, Petra Fallaux’s approach to her textile work is grounded in abstract art. Contemporary painting, graphic design, and architecture are major influences.

Formations is an ongoing series that embodies my credo: shape, color, and simplicity.  Having grown up in the Netherlands, I find I’m most attracted to spare geometric forms. Regimented polder landscapes, rectangular color fields, immense skies above seamless horizons have all inspired my work, at times intentionally but most often intuitively. Formations #18 explores embedding color in fields of greys; with distant perspectives transforming rectangular shapes into wedges. The grey sky embraces, yet also squeezes the vibrancy of colors. They are ruled and dulled by their relative positions in space and time.

Petra Fallaux’s recent series of printed textiles has been widely exhibited. Whole cloth monoprints, screen prints, and paper lamination prints are combined and layered with additional dye to evoke the deep longing for both the coastal and polder landscapes of her home country. They are often connected and punctuated, or perhaps severed, by a stark line representing the Dutch horizon.