Austrian textile artist, painter and poet, Franka Lechner, creates works of subtle nuances, mysterious beauty and great musicality. Spiritual and emotional processes unfold in abstract-expressive consonances and contrasts of colors, rhythmic spaces, balanced forms and delicate transitions and shadings, all of which evoke the poetic and meditative quality of her work. Franka Lechner describes the art of weaving as an energetic, structured and structuring process in which “time plays a considerable role, not merely in the actual activity but in the artist’s awareness. Beyond images, structures, colors, and issues of form, it also involves a particular kind of spatial concept connecting space and time. Weaving’s analytical approach, its spatial-temporal dimension, tie it to music … The slowness of weaving seems like an anachronism in our rapidly foreshortening times, but, in my view, this choice also represents an opportunity to gain greater inner strength, which in turn generates more energy for work. The severe, rhythmic craft of weaving offers a focus that is meditative in character and also produces a similar effect. Perhaps this is where some of its contemporary relevance may be found: The constant drain of time gives rise to a quest for an ‘alternate’ time.”

April 4 | 7:30 pm | Embassy of Austria
Admission free. RSVP required: 202-895-6776 or rsvp@austria.org

Light refreshments will be served.

The exhibition will run through September 21, 2007.