Cindy Strobach uses red cabbage dye and electrical household appliances to create fascinating colorful printed textiles. She created the work for her Final Show project at London’s Royal College of Art.
Photo: Cindy Strobach
Part of a larger exploration into the invisible phenomena of our everyday environment, the Electro Colour series reveals the hidden lives of two electrical appliances, a speaker and a toaster. Working with water electrolysis, which changes the water’s acidity level depending on its proximity to positive or negative electrodes, she uses red cabbage dye on silk as a pH indicator. This allows us to see the acidic and alkaline properties of the process as colored patterns.
Look familiar? It’s the inside of a toaster. Photo: Cindy Strobach
There’s so much to like about this work – on one level the pieces can be appreciated as aesthetically-pleasing and well-crafted. Conceptually, there is a kind of communication between the artist and the lowly devices that inhabit her home. The more poetic among us might say she give the appliances a voice, but personally, I’m above all delighted by the beautiful science-demo aspect of the work.
If you like this work as much as I do and you’re in London, you have a few more days to catch the exhibition, which runs until 29 June 2014 at the London College of Art.
