The article reviews an exhibition of Sam Gilliam's work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, focusing on 23 works from the 1990s that highlight his use of sewing and stitching. Gilliam, a relentless experimenter who died in 2022, is known for moving from hard-edged stripe paintings to draped, unstretched canvases that blurred painting and sculpture. This show reveals a lesser-known aspect of his practice: patchwork-like assemblages of painted and printed canvas pieces held together by visible machine stitching, often incorporating photographic imagery of botanical forms. The works originated from a 1993 residency in Ballinglen, County Mayo, where Gilliam shipped pre-painted canvases from Washington, D.C., and had a seamstress sew them together.
This exhibition matters because it sheds light on a pivotal yet underappreciated phase of Gilliam's career, demonstrating his refusal to be confined to a single mode of art production. By emphasizing the sewing technique as a form of drawing and ornamentation, the show challenges conventional narratives of Gilliam as solely a Color Field painter and aligns him with post-minimalist and textile-based practices. It also underscores the importance of international residencies in fostering artistic innovation, as the constraints of shipping materials led to a breakthrough in his work.