Soft Tissues
Exhibition at Brentwood Arts Exchange
In February 2023, I presented my first exhibition of the year: Soft Tissues —a project crafted with the guidance of artist and cultural administrator Irene Clouthier, within the Curatorial Development Program at Brentwood Arts Exchange.
Check out Bmore Art Magazine’s review of the show here.
Developing the concept was challenging at first, but there were two things I was sure of: I wanted to curate an all-women exhibit, and I was determined to showcase textile works.
I had been doing some research on textile and fiber arts, thinking about the materials’ many uses and meanings, like covering our bodies, adorning our homes, protecting us from the elements, marking special occasions, sometimes constraining us, but also helping us share stories about ourselves. The intriguing aspects of protection, both physical and metaphysical, led me to dive into the US Copyright Act's section on Visual Art Works.
Notably, textiles, especially in the context of fashion, are afforded less protection under the law. The act refrains from extending protection to what it defines as “useful articles.” This naturally sparks conversations about the dichotomy of art versus craft, the interplay of form and function, and the balance between artistic value and everyday utility. However, as I delved deeper, exploring works such as "Unraveling Women’s Art" by Art Historian P.L. Henderson, a more profound question about womanhood emerged.
Despite their millenary history, the idea of textiles as an art medium and art form didn't become popular until relatively recently, mainly because of the gendered assignment and general dismissal across cultures of sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery, etc. as “women’s work”. A work perpetuated as useful but abused, valuable but unvalued, ever-present but invisibilized; a work with a sensitivity that provides care and protection but hasn’t been generally protected in return.
Textiles are incredibly vulnerable to the environment and degrade more easily over time than other art forms. I believe this natural condition permeates society’s perception of women themselves, projecting this vulnerability as weakness and fragility onto them, instead of recognizing the unique strengths and complexities deserving of attention, care, and protection.
Softness, a typically feminized trait (soft skin, soft features, soft skills, soft power…) was presented in this exhibition as the familiar and essential attribute to all human experiences. Due to their elasticity, soft tissues in the body connect, support and protect other parts of the body. And like them, the works in this exhibition were in dialogue with each other, articulating the afflictions of a constricting system.
Annie Broderick’s sculptural fabrics rebel against confining judgements and act as symbolic extensions of her increasing physical strength. Artise Fletcher’s take on traditional weaving confronts social conventions about Black women’s hair, beauty, and delves into intimate stories of expectations regarding women’s bodies and their health. Olivia Tripp Morrow’s painstaking sewn pieces paint scenes of her spine surgery, sharing deeply personal moments of her recovery process, and the patient fortitude of a depleted body in reconstruction.
Individually, each piece manifests the intense private experiences of its makers and the women associated with them. Together, they formed a visual archive of womanhood’s interconnectedness; exposing common wounds, beliefs, and behaviors —all of which can be revised, healed, and ultimately transformed.
