Above is the work of one of the curators and artists in Self-Fabricated, Leslie Schomp. I have known about Leslie's work for quite a long time, ever since we were in another show together about 6 years ago. The work that I first saw was the double portrait she did of herself and her son out of hair, below. Her work immediately struck me as deeply personal so of course I loved it.
For this exhibit she took advantage of the museums beautiful display cases and showed a number of her works in them. To me this was a wonderful resolution for her work as her work seems so delicate and fragile that it asks to be protected and revered like an artifact.
Her collection of small portraits looked lovely in a case all together. I had chosen to exhibit a few of these as part of Cutting Edge and it was nice to see how many more she has made since then and how both as individual works and a collection they are successful.
Leslie is highly skilled at working with challenging materials such as metallic thread and hair, her research and honoring of history is relevant and powerful in the overall experience of her work.
Her work is often very self referential, the self looking at the self, as seen in this double portrait... and it always leaves me wanting more. I want to understand and be let into her work a bit more. I want to hear the language behind the imagery. But at the same time part of the magic is the mystery.
As a curator I have seen a lot of Leslie's work in photo form and it was so wonderful to see so many of her works together and in person.
Above is her response to the kimono work an incredible display of pulled thread work. Quite inspiring to me as this is a technique I have wanted to try for awhile. In this work she, the artist, is looking for something to only find herself searching in the end. Another perfect example of Leslie's poetry.
Read an interview I did of Leslie here and a previous post on her work here.
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