Available Works
The Plains Series
Chanee Vijay’s new collage series “The Plains” explores and highlights hemp fiber's response to the elements. Using a combination of natural, bleached, and dyed European hemp to echo and amplify the subtle gradients found within the natural fibers, Chanee’s choices for the pieces are rooted in her upbringing in eastern Kansas. The neutral hues, a palette preference inherited from her mother and reminiscent of the quiet, open landscape of Kansas plains, serve as a through line across each collage. Cultivated through old-world retting methods, the hemp’s color remains at the mercy of the elements, resulting in a tapestry of hues that narrate the story of each growing season. Sunny and dry weather results in brighter hemp fiber, just as rain leads to darker hues. Within the work, flecks of raw fibers, slubs, and the diversity within the weave from the retting process are not imperfections, but celebrations of hemp’s inherent textural qualities. Just as the elements have left their mark on the hemp, they have influenced Chanee’s work, instilling a fondness for self-restraint and beauty of subdued tones. This series is a chronicle of hemp fiber's heritage, a dialogue with the elements, and a reflection of the self.
Available April 1, 2024 at Tappan Collective.
FEBRUARY 2024
The Excitement Of Decay Series
In her new series, The Excitement Of Decay, Chanee Vijay wanders through the often overlooked hues and textures of dead flora found in the meadows and forests of the northern Sonoma Coast in autumn. Chanee painted the pieces of hemp to mimic the deep colors of decaying duff on the forest floor, the subtle golden shifts of dried grasses and ferns lying fallow in the meadows, and the rich emerald shades of new growth pushing through the after the winter rains. Through this twelve-piece series, Chanee shares her reverence for this process of decay, of rest and latency, that precedes the lush lively blooms of early spring.
Available February 27th at Tappan Collective.
NOVEMBER 2023
The Ancient Repetitions Series
In her first series for Tappan, Chanee Vijay shares her regard for the millennia-old landscape on her California property in textile collages that exude awe and a hard-won sense of joy.
Artist Statement
I created this series while living alone for two months with my dogs in the coastal redwoods at The Sea Ranch. The combination of a new isolated location, the solitude, and the astonishingly beautiful landscape allowed me to explore and revel in the unfamiliar. I’ve learned so much about redwood trees, but began to focus my curiosity on how the 1000-year old redwood stumps age and change from their original grand form. The stumps are slowly decaying as their offspring tower around them. They are taking on new forms and purpose — not unlike an aging woman. They’re still giving — topped with huckleberry shrubs, covered in moss, and shedding their thick bark now blackened with protective tannins. This is where I found the shapes for my pieces — the exposed flesh, the grain under the bark, and the contours of erosion. Because huckleberry season is in August and September, I was able to make a huckleberry dye for my natural hemp. The results ranged from soft rose hues to violet and deep indigo. Many of the pieces in the series have a small piece of huckleberry dyed hemp. To me this represents a gift from an ancient ancestor — the mother tree showing us how to embrace change, and forcing me to confront my own fear of aging.
