Al Loving - Abstract art collage
Alvin D. Loving (September 19, 1935 – June 21, 2005), better known as Al Loving was an African-American abstract expressionist painter. His work is known for hard-edge abstraction, fabric constructions, and large paper collages, all exploring complicated color relationships.Inspired by a visit to the Whitney Museum's exhibition «Abstract Design in American Quilts,» in the early 1970s, Loving takes his canvases off the stretcher bars and begins experimenting. He started hanging strips of canvas from the walls and ceilings, playing with our perception of pictorial and sculptural ideals. Then, he reattached the fragments together with a sewing machine, creating large flowing fabric constructions. At first he painted the pieces of canvas, but later switched to dying the fabric. This way of working was not born out of a vacuum; Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, and Richard Moch were also using the sewing machine. In fact, Loving considered himself within the context of abstract expressionism at this phase in his career; though he was not a painter but a material abstractionist.