Inside the fabric of a Spartanburg exhibit, four artists make evocative statements
The Upstate has a long-standing tradition surrounding textiles, which are woven throughout our history. With both a wink at the past and a truly modern viewpoint, the four female artists in the Spartanburg Museum of Art’s Woven/Unwoven exhibit showcase their take on textiles in wildly diverse ways. Alexandra Beaumont, Sasha de Koninck, Kimberly English, and Patricia Miranda have distilled fabric down to its most basic and elevated it to its most complex. Twisted, embroidered, shredded, unraveled, dyed, and deconstructed, the pieces on the wall toggle the line between what is a garment and what is art.
Embellishing silk remnants, Alexandra Beaumont uses a variety of stitches and beads to create contemporary collages that have a painterly effect. By turning an ordinary shirt or dress inside out and hanging it on the wall, Sasha de Koninck aims to “unlearn her relationship with her body.” A men’s business suit is meticulously disemboweled, taken apart piece by piece by Kimberly English, who mounts it on the wall to make a large monochromatic statement. For another work, she shreds vertical pieces of American selvedge denim, exposing a tangle of inside threads. Patricia Miranda makes a patchwork wall sculpture out of stitched-together vintage lace, dyed red. When she mounts an assortment of classic aprons from the 1950s, the result is a massive wheel of color, texture, and homespun kitsch.
Fabric is something that touches our lives every day. It’s enlightening to see how contemporary artists interpret elements of what we wear—each with unique creative expression.
Fiber Optics
In the fashion realm, designers often approach clothing as art. Although impractical to actually wear, their creations are meant to expand boundaries, inspiring feelings from whimsy to shock, much like the art in the Woven/Unwoven exhibit.
The late clothing designer Alexander McQueen has been acknowledged as a true artist. His Savage Beauty retrospective in 2011 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased his astonishing garments utilizing items such as slashed leather, corroded fabrics, shredded lace, latex, animal feathers, and even real flowers.
Recently the Dutch avant-garde design duo Viktor + Rolf shook up the runways for Spring/Summer 2023 with unusual upside down and sideways gowns, also making art with a fashion statement.
Spartanburg Art Museum, 200 E. St. John St., Spartanburg. Thru May 31, Tues.–Sat., times vary. Free. 864.582.7616, spartanburgartmuseum.org
