Tetsuo Fujimoto in London

Until 17 December the Daiwa Foundation (near Baker St) is showing work by Tetsuo Fujimoto - he's one of my textile heros. I went to his talk last Friday and saw that a workstation was set up ready for the "meet the artist" day on Saturday afternoon, samples all in a heap -
After telling us about how he started as a weaver and in the mid-90s changed to "drawing with the sewing machine", we moved to the room with the sewing machine and got a short demonstration. At home he has an industrial machine with the stitch lengths programmed in - the beginning and end of each "stroke" are denser zigzag. Surface Design carried an article in the Fall 2005 "machine embroidery" issue. Fujimoto is quoted as saying: "I am trying to make the macro and micro world coexist in one picture surface, through the linear expression of the sewing machine. The overlapping of lines leads us from the surface to the inner world of that thing."
The large pieces take months of intense work, and Fujimoto doesn't do preliminary drawing - he focuses on the idea the whole time he's stitching, unlike with weaving, where he could let his mind wander. The current exhibition shows many small pieces, a chance for play and variation.
His base fabric is hemp, because that is a local material. He uses polyester and rayon thread, but says "silk is the best" because of the way the colours interact. The layers and varying density cause the fabric to ripple, emphasising the textile qualities of these big pieces. The blue piece on the final page of the article is in the exhibition - it measures 81" x 79", draws you in from a distance, then envelopes you as you focus on the details. Macro and micro, as he says.
Most of the other pieces in the exhibition are white stitching on dark backgrounds - sometimes with delightfully vari-coloured bands of satin stitch along the bottom.

This page has photos, including the bands of satin stitch and the demonstration he gave us (I'm in the picture!)