Her embroidered portraits are anchored in the connections she forges with her subjects: each portrait begins with a photo shoot in which her sitters are captured in a moment of self-awareness and empowerment.
—Gio Swaby
Having grown up in the Bahamas surrounded by the materials her seamstress mother used, Swaby chose to work in textiles—a medium traditionally associated with domesticity and femininity—as a means to imbue her works with both familiarity and labor-intensive care.
She upends tradition, however. Not
only do her often life-size portraits give a sense of monumentality to the
techniques of embroidery and piecing, but she also presents the reverse side of
her intricately rendered canvases so that the stitching process of her freehand
style—the normally hidden knots and loose threads—is visible. While there’s a
vulnerability to “showing the back,” Swaby embraces and elevates these
imperfections.
This exhibition—Swaby’s first solo museum show—brings together seven of Swaby’s series from 2017 through 2021, such as My Hands Are Clean, Love Letters, and Pretty Pretty, along with approximately 15 new works, including her largest work to date, a commission for the US Embassy in Nassau, Bahamas.
The title of the show, Fresh Up, developed with the artist, is a Bahamian phrase often used as a way to compliment someone’s style or confident way of being. Swaby has remarked, “It holds a lot of positivity and joy. It also speaks to the tone of confidence and power that I want to create with these works. I love that it is a way to form connections through a simple phrase.”
Gio Swaby: Fresh Up is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.
The exhibition is curated by Melinda Watt, chair and Christa C. Mayer Thurman Curator of Textiles, Art Institute of Chicago, and Katherine Pill, curator of contemporary art, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.
A fully illustrated catalogue, published by Rizzoli,
accompanies the exhibition and includes an interview between the artist and
Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, as well as essays by the
curators and contributions from Swaby herself.
https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9869/gio-swaby-fresh-up
ET À PARIS...
Seconde vie, l'art de recycler
Lieu : Fluctuart, Paris 7e
Date de début : 18 mars 2023
Date de fin : 11 juin 2023
Tarifs : Entrée libre.
Programmation : Du mercredi au dimanche 12h-minuit
Site web : www.fluctuart.fr
Présentation
Fluctuart propose à huit artistes issus de l’art urbain d’aborder le thème du recyclage sous toutes ses formes. Les artistes intègrent des matériaux usagés dans leur processus de création pour les envisager non plus comme simples déchets mais comme points de départ à leur création et à leur réflexion sur notre rapport aux objets et à l’environnement.
Livres anciens, canettes en aluminium, bouteilles en plastiques usagées ou vieux cartons sont autant d’éléments qui constituent un incroyable réservoir de ressources pour ces artistes.
Ememem, Evazésir, Jibé, Joachim Romain, FKDL, Le Diamantaire, Madame et My Dog Sighs mêlent éléments d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. Que ce soit dans une logique de respect des ressources et de l’environnement ou pour le pouvoir évocateur des objets qui ont déjà eu une histoire, ils intègrent des matériaux usagés dans leur processus de création.
L'exposition Seconde vie, l'art de recycler est référencée dans notre rubrique Art contemporain.
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