Abstract paintings become haute couture dresses; a chair
becomes a birthing place for mushrooms; and vegetable
bags become high-design sculptures in an exhibit that
explores transformation and renewal.
Project Runway designer Christopher Straub, fiber-art pioneer Nancy
MacKenzie, abstract painter Patrick Kemal Pryor, and eco-sculptor Kate
Casanova transform ordinary objects and found materials into distinctive
artworks in “Fashioned: One Becomes Another.”
In a true collaboration between fashion and high art, Minnesota native and
Project Runway contestant Christopher Straub turns giant, abstract paintings
by Patrick Kemal Pryor into eight designer dresses that function as much as
fashion as they do elaborate three-dimensional sculptures.
Pryor’s colorful and abstract images were as large as 60 square feet before
he handed them over to Straub for re-imagining. The end result is a series of
breath-taking canvas dresses that honor Pryor’s aesthetic through Straub’s
unique cuts and swirling designs.
Minnesota native Kate Casanova also reconstructs objects, turning an
old living-room chair into soil for a fruiting mushroom plot. Giant pink
mushrooms grow from the cushion, creating a vibrant, living artwork.
Nancy MacKenzie has been using materials for a long time, in a way that
we now call recycling. She sculpts beautiful intricate artworks from a
mix of bailing twine, plastic vegetable bags, and twigs. Her vegetable bag
sculptures are so elaborate and colorful they conceal their humble origin.
In this exhibition, the artists by transforming and refashioning their materials
investigate and explore problems and relationships that are important to
them. We invite you to join them in the spirit of discovery.
Please click here to see photos from the show.
Please click here to go to our press page.
