During my first semester as a MFA student, I engaged in a process of exploration of light, translucency, movement, fabric, and clothing. The output of that exploration process is Echoes of a Silk Dress, an installation consisting of “found” (thrifted), primarily silk, clothing items and reclaimed silk cloth, suspended with steel rope. Two animation tracks of fabric in movement are projected onto, and through, the suspended fabric. This work, with both its physical cloth and ethereal projection elements, is emblematic of what “art and technology” means to me as an artist- the blurring of the lines between traditional and new media in service of artistic expression.
Echoes of a Silk Dress is an expression of my life-long fascination with the characteristics and aesthetic properties of fabric, particularly fabric drape, texture, and translucency, and explores the relationship between the human body, expression, movement, and clothing. Costume, fabric, and dance were central to how I expressed joy and engaged in play as a child. However, as I became increasingly uncomfortable with the gendered expectations being placed on me, I felt forced to abandon these things to be respected as a transmasculine individual. There is a melancholy and nostalgia- as well as a quiet joy- in Echoes of a Silk Dress reflective of my complicated relationship with gender and gender expression
