Botanic Energy by Laura Fox-Wallis

Botanic Energy
Laura Fox-Wallis
French silk dye on 100% Chiffon silk
30”h x 30”w x 1.5” 
2025

Bursting with color and movement, this original silk painting features vivid abstract flowers created using a layered wax batik technique. Each translucent layer reveals bold shapes, luminous color, and rhythmic line work, capturing the energy of a blooming garden in full sunlight.

Get to Know the Austin Artist:
I am a fiber artist and art educator working with dye on silk.
In 2004, I began to explore the diverse effects of silk painting and found a strong connection with the fluid movement and brilliant colors of the dye. When the brush touches the silk there is beauty in the mixture of two mediums, creating satisfaction in the understanding of such a meticulous process.

Using a medium-weight Habotai silk, steam-fixed silk dyes and resist, I layer color to create form and texture, counting missteps as design elements that are sometimes more beautiful and interesting than the original concept. In this manner, the viewer can connect to the artwork, sharing in the pleasure of discovering the beauty in the world around.

Understanding the complex variety of fabrics, patterning, and constructing is important to my process. These are experiences that are rooted in my expression of color, pattern, and texture that appear consistently within my silk art. The moment silk painting was introduced to me, it was immediately a perfect marriage of both watercolor and fiber, the two mediums I have loved since childhood.