Body Is Amanda Triplett Opening: Friday, November 15th 6-10pm
My body is… Oozing, soft, supple, fibrous, and organic, this textile installation explores the struggle of having a body, being a body, and wearing a body in a world. The work asks how we reconcile our fleshy masses with the culturally-designated and expected bodily narratives. By turning the body inside out from fiber to flesh, the work facilitates a conversation between our socially contracted second skins (clothing) and the emotionality of our insides.
Making art in the space where fine art and craftwork intersect, Amanda Triplett manipulates, layers and embroiders salvaged fibers into abstractions of human biology. Stemming from an interest in humanity’s collective bodily narratives, she creates sculptural and installation works that explore embodiment of emotion, beliefs and culture. Guided by the textures, history and movement of discarded fabric, she manipulates, layers and embroiders the fiber into new biological formations. The work reflects the expectations and assumptions that come with inhabiting our own bodies and identities.
For this exhibition, Amanda will be performing Exuviation. In this performance, the artist enters the space and inhabits the installation, altering the piece through a molting process of cutting and slow-stitch sewing.
Amanda makes sculptural fiber, installation and intermedia works from salvaged textiles. After studying art and art history at Sarah Lawrence College, she graduated in 2004. She has shown in the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest including Kaleid Gallery in San Jose, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, COCA in Seattle, Art House Gallery in Berkeley, Ford Gallery, Multnomah Art Gallery and Milepost 5. Amanda has been a Portland Open Studios artist from 2017-2019. In fall of 2019, she created a tactile, sculptural nest for an inclusive, multi-sensory group exhibit at Paragon Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Amanda was a 2016 Glean artist-in-resident, where she was given access to the Portland dump to glean waste materials to make sculpture and installation. She lives with her two kids and husband in Portland, Oregon.