Nanuk, 2010

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Gift of the Finnish design house Marimekkoexpand_more  2016.41.3

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Kaiku (Echo) evokes a bucolic scene viewed through a large, loosely drawn birch tree, with an abstracted landscape beyond. It shows the illustrator’s sensibility Louekari brings to her popular textiles. She began working for Marimekko in 2003, when she won a competition sponsored by the firm and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now part of Aalto University) for emerging textile designers, and her lively patterns have been standouts during the last decade of production. Playfulness characterizes the vignette captured in Louekari’s Karkuteillä, the Finnish word meaning being at large. The fabric design depicts three animals happily on the lam, perhaps escaped from the zoo: a zebra and an elephant—both shod in stylish boots—and a flamingo. Karkuteillä reflects the influence of storybooks and fairy tales on Louekari. Moorhouse’s Nanuk fabric design prompts the viewer to wonder what a polar bear is doing in the jungle. Perhaps this is simply a playful gesture, or perhaps it is a foreboding reference to climate change. Moorhouse’s work has a strong graphic quality; here she fills the entire fabric width with her design and surrounds the polar bear, Nanuk, with colorful tropical flowers. Moorhouse began working for Marimekko in 2004, when she expanded her fashion-design practice to include graphic design.

Details
Title
Nanuk
Artist Life
born 1971
Role
Designer
Accession Number
2016.41.3
Curator Approved

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