Assembly, Nancy Bardach, 2022, mixed media, 30 x 47 in. / 76.2 x 120 cm.

Nancy Bardach: Textiles of Memory, Motion, and Myth

December 9, 2025 Gavin Coates

Nancy Bardach’s textile works blend dyed fabrics, stitched linework, and layered abstraction to explore landscape, memory, and cultural symbolism.

Nancy Bardach creates layered textile compositions using dyed fabrics and stitching to explore landscape, motion, and cultural memory through abstract form.

Working with cotton, silk, shibori dyeing, and batik processes, Bardach constructs tactile compositions that shift between atmospheric impressions and architectural solidity. Harvest Moon, The Fish in the Sea 4, and Aztec Altar highlight her ability to turn fabric into narrative, each piece inviting viewers to sense motion, reflect on place, and recognize the emotional depth embedded in material craft.

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Harvest Moon, Nancy Bardach, 2016, mixed media, 30 x 24 in. / 76.2 x 60.96 cm.

Harvest Moon captures the quiet astonishment of witnessing a moonrise low on the horizon. Bardach uses cotton and silk fabrics with subtle paint and textured threads to evoke the expansion of light across a dusk field. The rising orb, rendered in soft yellows and violets, appears magnified, its curved form traced by faint concentric stitching that mimics atmospheric distortion. Below, mirrored reflections and horizontal bands suggest land, water, and horizon dissolving into one another. Bardach’s color transitions and layered textiles turn a universal natural event into an intimate moment of wonder, reminding viewers how celestial phenomena can spark shared joy.

The Fish in the Sea 4, Nancy Bardach, 2018, mixed media, 20 x 12 in. / 50.8 x 30.48 cm.

In The Fish in the Sea 4, Bardach captures the fluidity of a school of fish darting through water. Sleek, dark silhouettes, derived from a recurring batik fabric used throughout her series, slice across the lower field in rhythmic repetition. The irregular shape of the textile itself subtly echoes the form of a boat, enhancing the sensation of floating or gliding over a shifting sea. Above the fish, horizontal strips of fabric in blues, greens, purples, and neutrals create a layered seascape, while stitched lines mimic currents and turbulence. The composition is alive with motion, yet grounded by Bardach’s intuitive balancing of pattern and proportion.

Aztec Altar, Nancy Bardach, 2016, mixed media, 31 x 23 in. / 78.74 x 58.42 cm.

Aztec Altar draws from the cultural and historical resonance of pre-Columbian architecture. Bardach constructs a stepped, altar-like structure from hand-dyed, marbled, and shibori-dyed cottons, arranging them into a composition of strength and symmetry. Vertical “columns” and horizontal “stones” consolidate into a solid framework reminiscent of the sculptural displays at Casa Azul, where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo showcased pre-Columbian artifacts. Red thread lines cut through the piece like energetic fissures, evoking bloodlines, ancestry, and ritual. Through fabric alone, Bardach conveys a sense of inherited weight and the endurance of cultural memory.

Across these works, Bardach uses textile techniques to create layered worlds that oscillate between natural observation, kinetic movement, and historical symbolism. Harvest Moon celebrates awe, The Fish in the Sea 4 captures motion and instinct, and Aztec Altar grounds viewers in cultural narrative and architectural permanence. Through stitching, dyeing, and compositional rhythm, Bardach transforms cloth into meaning, proving that textiles can hold the same emotional and conceptual power as paint or stone. Her work ultimately reminds us that materiality, memory, and imagination are inextricably intertwined.

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