Opening Saturday, September 9th 5-8 PM Performance at 5:30 PM
History is slippery like satin. We wear stories of the past like a uniform, a costume, a suit of armor, or a disguise. Timelines unravel and are stitched together as memory or custom dictates. In Rewind, artists Jen LaMastra and Martha Daghlian combine aspects of traditional fiber craft with histories both personal and collective in wearable artworks that reflect on what it means to play an individual role in a shared drama.
LaMastra’s meticulously constructed garments are as playful as they are assertive, evoking the lineage of feminist art and pop cultural artifacts, in alignment with her ongoing practice of political “craftivism.”
In Daghlian’s haphazardly sewn pieces, European archetypes like the fool and the scholar are reanimated before a backdrop of patchworked historical imagery, encouraging a poetic disassembly of the past. Both artists take unique approaches to transform soft and discarded materials into adornments for acts of resilience, resistance, and reimagination.
Rewind opens at 1122 Outside on Saturday, September 9, from 5-8pm. A very short performance will take place during the reception at 5:30.
Jen LaMastra is a multimedia artist, finding and exploring the connections between personal psychology and found objects. She articulates these connections as the idea dictates toward sculpture, film, or performance. Jen is a drammy award winner for best costume design at Northwest Children’s Theater, and was a guest costume designer at University of Santa Barbara. She has presented work at Portland International Airport, Disjecta, and Museum of Art and Craft for her wearable found object sculptures. Jen also curators and produces shows in her own home 1510 gallery in Portland Oregon.
Martha Daghlian is an artist and writer based in Portland who is inspired by the dead ends of history, doubtful knowledge, and fuzzy emotional timelines. Her body of work is a troupe of personal Frankensteins (sic) revivified to dance like fools in what poet Will Alexander might call “a wary reenactment of the past.” Her past/future projects include Grapefruits Art Space, athousandcirclets.garden, and the High-Tech Luddites Anti-Smartphone Club.