More Than One Thread
Exhibition dates: November 3 - 10, 2022
Closing reception: Thursday, November 10th, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Jesse, Plaster, Siliconized Acrylic Polymer, and Fabric, 2022
Leticia, Plaster, Siliconized Acrylic Polymer, and Fabric, 2022
Lenny, Plaster, Siliconized Acrylic Polymer, and Fabric, 2022
Artist Statement
Focusing on fabric, my work aims to spotlight the material, providing it with a life of its own. After considering my own connection with fabric, specifically through ways in which I dress, I began to discover more and more correlations between fabric and the human experience. In moments of high self-esteem, my clothing choices would be more form fitting and colorful in contrast to moments of lacking confidence where my clothing choices would be looser with muted tones.
While creating this body of work, I am influenced by the dramatic Baroque marble sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, as the fabric he sculpts is often as emotive as the biblical figures he depicts. Contemporary artists such as Benjamin Shine, Ramekon O’Arwisters, and Akio Tezuka also influence my work as their own textile sculptures showcase fabric through different applications and techniques. In some way, shape, or form, the works of the previously mentioned artists highlight the versatility of fabric and ways in which it relates to people.
Fabric decorates our lives and often does so in correspondence with a function such as for shade, warmth, comfort, modesty, or even distinction in societal classes. Fabric's ubiquitous presence in people's lives has woven a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship as the material is used over time.Most people spend their entire lives encased in some sort of fabric material whether it's the blankets they are swaddled in as babies, or beyond that, the fabric that lines their coffins. My observations of fabric have allowed me to see the ways fabric starts to reflect the human experience. Many of the forms that fabric takes, such as soft subtle forms to chaotic folds and twists, can be representative for moments of ease or disorder in a person's life. By casting fabric in plaster and shaping it to accentuate its full range of movement, my work provides fabric with an identity outside of its functional purposes.