Altered Blanket Series (2018-19)
This series of works began with a collection of hundreds of tightly-cropped selfies taken on my iPhone. The selfies were then digitally arranged in Photoshop, and custom-printed onto blanket template. Some blankets in this series were further altered by hand through adding, subtracting, layering, and weaving other textiles into the work, or by cutting slits into the blanket and pinning them open. Read more about the series below.
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Lips
2019 Blanket, sewing pins, dowel, plastic hooks, sand 99" x 68" Lips utilizes a custom-printed, mass-produced blanket that I repeatedly slit, peeled back, and pinned into place. The resulting colorful ‘lips’ that appear against the white underside of the blanket alludes to the hyper-sexualization and commodification of women’s bodies, and the saturation of this imagery in digital media and advertising industries. |
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Lashes
2019 Custom-printed fleece blanket, scrap fabric, fake eyelashes, rhinestones, tassels, trim, adhesive, grommets 50"x60" Lashes utilizes a mass-produced blanket that was custom-printed with an intimate photo-collage of my own selfies in a checkerboard pattern. Soft red and pink fabrics, decorative textile scraps, and single-use beauty products designed to temporarily ‘enhance’ women’s bodies are built up around this pattern. Lashes aims to critique the absurd cultural canons of beauty and femininity in the US, and the cycles of consumption and waste that fuel those industries. |
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Broken Dishes
2018 Custom-printed blanket with digital collage 60"x80" |
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Iris Medallion
2018 Custom-printed blanket with digital collage 60"x80" |
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Press
Review of two works from this series while on view in a group show.
Written by John Anderson for Washington City Paper
Written by John Anderson for Washington City Paper
