textile mixed media painting

New Artwork: Afterimage

I’m really pleased with this piece, which features a lace overlay originally prepared for Woven Thresholds but left over after I replaced it with a version better suited to that panel’s color palette.

Both this painting and Woven Thresholds change as you move around them. Stand directly in front of the artwork, and your eye resolves each opening in the lace as an individual gap. Step back or view the panel from an oblique angle, and those tiny openings geometrically compress below your visual threshold. Your eye averages it into a single surface (exploiting the same optical mechanism as pointillist painting and halftone printing). Ironically, a flat, head-on photo is the least resolved version of the painting you’ll see!

This is Afterimage, acrylic, lace, and jacquard trim on wooden floater panel, 14x11x.5”, 2026.

While both trims draw from traditional Baltic textile iconography, Woven Thresholds relies on a classic color scheme, whereas Afterimage shifts the geometric motif and renders it in a modern, fluorescent palette.

Shelby Prindaville's mixed media painting of tulips on lace mesh with a Baltic jacquard trim on floater panel.

New Artwork: Sanctuary

I am still working on pieces that incorporate fabric and textile traditions! Here’s another of those, featuring a parent grebe and its chick - specifically, the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus). Be prepared for all the adjectives coming up: the surface fabric is a modified Baltic open weave wool and lace curtain from the 70s. I removed some of the wool for conceptual color palette reasons, and cut away a curtain section entirely to let the painted panel show through.

On the sides of the panel, an Estonian jacquard trim makes two appearances! The band is finished on both sides and features different patterns on each; I used both on the perimeter.

This is Sanctuary, acrylic, vintage wool and lace curtain, and jacquard trim on wood panel, 18.1x12.2x1.5”, 2026.

Shelby Prindaville's mixed media painting of a grebe and chick with vintage curtain and jacquard trim.