Gabriel Dawe: Plexus

Mexican artist Gabriel Dawe makes all kinds of wondrous things with basic textiles. His ongoing series, Plexus, is a collection of unique, complex structures that form intricate patterns of color with sewing thread. The artist says he builds the site-specific installations to “explore the connection between fashion and architecture, and how they relate to the human need for shelter in all its shapes and forms.”
In each Plexus installation, thousands of single strands are hooked into walls to collectively form brilliant prisms of color. From rainbow gradients to monochromatic palettes, Dawe explores the organized beauty of the interacting colors.
Dawe originally started his work as a graphic designer, but through exploration and experimentation, he eventually turned to textiles and embroidery. Realizing that these types of activities are generally associated with women and not appropriate for little boys in Mexico City, Dawe’s work began to “examine the complicated construction of gender and identity in his native Mexico and attempts to subvert the notions of masculinity and machismo prevalent in the present day.”