Gallery 6
God Trap
Shay Colley

The practice of intentionally including slight and minor irregularities in Persian rugs is derived from the belief that God is the only perfect being. But who wants to follow a perfect god? An imperfect deity, or ‘false god’, one that is deemed unworthy of divinity is more relatable. A god that shits and pisses, makes mistakes and apologises. Modern mechanised modes of production allow us to flirt with perfection and approach unfaltering precision. However, no matter how advanced technology becomes all material production is imbued with a human element – it’s this part that contains risk and the ‘perfectly imperfect’. Shay Colley explores these notions through a series of digitally woven and printed rugs comprised of hand-cut collages, endeavouring to display balance and stasis between disconnected elements. The collages are then scanned and interpreted by an online ‘photo’ weaving service. Though striving for perfection the software will make approximations of the images rather than perfect replicas.

www.shaycolley.com

All images by Vivian Cooper Smith