INTERWOVEN

Melissa Cody, Orly Cogan, Fort Lonesome, Amada Miller, Haleh Pedram, and Suzanne Wyss

1/25/2019 - 3/02/2019

 

Opening Reception: January 25th from 7-10pm.

MASS is pleased to present INTERWOVEN, an exhibition featuring six contemporary artists who work in textiles: Melissa Cody (Flagstaff, AZ), Orly Cogan (Hudson Valley, NY), Fort Lonesome (Austin, TX), Amada Miller (San Antonio, TX), Haleh Pedram (Richmond, VA), and Suzanne Wyss (Austin, TX). From traditional textile-based forms of artwork like Navajo weaving, natural dyes, embroidery, and chain stitching, to the more contemporary approaches of site-specific installation and free-standing sculptures, INTERWOVEN showcases a spectrum of strategies, materials, formats, and content.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Melissa Cody was born to the Edgewater Clan of the Navajo Nation and is from No Water Mesa, AZ. She is a specialist in the Germantown Revival style of Navajo weaving acquiring her knowledge and technical skill from a long line of family members who are prominent Navajo weavers. Miss Cody received a BA in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a 2018 Native Arts and Culture Foundations’ Artist Fellows and a recipient of the Heard Museum Guild’s Conrad House Award. Miss Cody is a lecturer on the history and tradition of Navajo weaving and is regarded as a vanguard for her contemporary compositions that are deconstructed and reworked traditional patterns that carry the sensibility of her Navajo culture.  

Orly Cogan was born in Israel and educated at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in NYC and The Maryland Institute College of Art. Cogan has been exhibiting her work throughout the US and in Europe for over two decades and has been at the forefront of the fiber arts movement with an emphasis on Feminism in contemporary art.

Cogan has been included in a number of notable national and international museum and university exhibitions, including “Pretty Tough, Contemporary Storytelling" at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art; “Pricked, Extreme Embroidery” at the Museum of Arts & Design, NY, which holds her work in its permanent collection; “Material Girls” at the Riverside Museum, Riverside, California; "I Want Candy" at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; and "She Will Always Be Younger Than Us" at the Textile Museum of Toronto, Canada, with Judy Chicago, among others. She has also been featured in “Sur Le Fil” at the Musee International Des Arts Modeste, Sete, France; "The Needle’s Eye" at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Oslo. Cogan’s work is found in various public and private collections internationally.

Fort Lonesome is a design-forward custom western wear and chain-stitch embroidery studio based in Austin, TX.  We work collaboratively with our clients to create works that capture the stories of their wearers, in an effort to create pieces that slowly and carefully consider the symbiosis of art, narrative, and technician-ship. Our process is led by considerations of necessity and sustainability, and our designs are inspired by the natural world and its visible and invisible energies.

Amada Miller is an artist based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work has been exhibited at Agora Gallery, AP Art Lab, Artpace San Antonio, Blue Star Contemporary, Capsule Gallery, Flight Gallery, French & Michigan, the McNay Art Museum, Palmetto Center for the Arts at Northwest Vista College, Sala Diaz and The University of Texas at San Antonio. She recently completed a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien via Blue Star Contemporary’s Berlin Residency program, where she worked closely with curators and research staff at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Future solo exhibitions include Blue Star Contemporary (San Antonio, TX), Cinnabar (San Antonio, TX), Useable Space (Milwaukee, WI) and Porcino (Berlin).

Cushion artist Haleh Pedram uses waste from her upholstery business to create oversized depictions of food worthy of lounging upon. These are her first packaged food sculptures, modeled after classic junk food and trash. Haleh lives and works in Richmond, VA.

Sculptor and installation artist Suzanne Wyss transforms industrial materials into organic forms. Wyss received her MFA in sculpture from Indiana University in 2013 and her BFA in sculpture and ceramics from the University of Minnesota, Duluth  in 2010. She was raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota by her landscape architect father and textile artist mother whose influences are undoubtedly found throughout her work. Wyss has shown her artwork throughout the Midwest and as far away as Osaka, Japan. She has a permanent installation at Thinkery ATX and created a site specific installation for the Facebook Artist in Residence Program in 2018. Wyss currently lives, works, and plays in sunny Austin, Texas.