StandardVision Artist Showcase: A Fusion of Generative Art and Physical Quilting by Artist Anna Lucia and the Quilters of Gee’s Bend

In collaboration with Vellum LA and Arsnl Art, StandardVision has curated a site-specific artist showcase of selected works from generative artist Anna Lucia and the Quilters of Gee’s Bend’s collaborative series Generations on view across a number of StandardVision’s large-scale exterior displays throughout Los Angeles through May 31st.

Pioneering generative artist Anna Lucia weaves traditional textile techniques with modern technology, creating a space where “logic and creativity collide.” She finds connections with female textile artists who have been overlooked throughout history. For her latest exhibition, Generations, Anna Lucia uses computer algorithms to craft a series of digital quilts inspired by the iconic patchworks of the Quilters of Gee's Bend. Once a plantation, today virtually all of the 700 residents of Gee’s Bend, Alabama are descendants of the enslaved people that worked the land. The town's only road was paved in 1967, around the same time that it’s ferry service, the most direct way in and out, was discontinued in an attempt to prevent its residents from crossing the river to register to vote.

For generations, the largely isolated women of the Bend quilted. Lacking in other resources, the quilters created geometric patterns out of old britches, cornmeal sacks, and whatever else happened to be around. This sense of chance and improvisation can be felt in their quilts which pulsate with rhythm and color. By the turn of the century, the quilters of Gee’s Bend finally gained long overdue recognition for their remarkable contribution to art. Today, their quilts can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many others. 

Generations embraces the polyrhythmic call-and-response style of the Gee’s Bend: the quilters shared their process with Anna Lucia, who in turn created an algorithm to generate digital quilts that share key elements with the source, yet are unique and surprising in their own way. After months of collaboration, the quilters handpicked exquisite digital quilts to offer to collectors for future generations. The sale of this series, launching this month, will include up to 500 1/1 digital artworks as well as several unique legacy quilts by Loretta Pettway Bennett, Essie Bendolph Pettway, and Mary Margaret Pettway, daughter of Lucy Pettway. Also featured is a new unique physical quilt, quilted by Margaret Pettway as a response to an output generated by Anna Lucia.

Anna Lucia is an engineer and self-taught artist from The Netherlands who lives in Cairo. She writes algorithms to generate artwork, often combining mathematics and computer science concepts and systems with traditional crafts such as textile work. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Art Basel Miami (2021), Vellum LA (2022), Art Basel (2022), and the Decentral Art Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2022), among others.

Catch selected works from the Generations series on view at Melrose & Spaulding, Kurve LA, 3rd Street Crossing, and 888 N Vermont, through May 31st, and learn more about the artist on her Instagram, Arsnl Art on their website, and this collaboration with the Quilter’s of Gee’s Bend here.