The Matter of Bark Cloth
Produced across the world, bark cloth is an artistic object made from the inner bark of trees and is often a critically important artistic product for the communities that produce it. Bark cloth’s ability to function as both a textile as well as a painted decorative surface extends its importance. However, because Euro-American artists have not historically created artworks from bark, the artform has been understudied and under-collected by Euro-American art museums. It also defies traditional Western categorizations of artistic genre (such as painting, textile, and work on paper).