The 1970s were a decade marked by restless creativity, social change, and bold experimentations in ethnic fashion, abstract design, and disco culture that fueled some of the most compelling visual art of the 20th century. All of these influences resonate throughout Magnetic Edition, a collection that revisits ten archival Edward Fields designs from this seminal decade, revealing the father of modern American carpet design to be very much at the forefront of his tempestuous times. Inspired by the kinetic art movement and the rise in hard-edge painting techniques that similarly influenced contemporaries like Frank Stella, Fields employs repetition, contrast, and gradations of color to compose a series of designs whose visual tensions evoke the attraction and repulsion of powerful magnetic polarities. Magnetics’ color palette presents these stunning geometric patterns in an updated twist on popular 1970s tones, pairing audacious shades of avocado green, harvest orange, and sky blue with neutralizing almond and walnut colors to imbue each design with additional layers of energy and depth.
