Exhibition Dates: December 16, 2017 – December 30, 2018
Opening Reception: December 16, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Closing Reception: December 28, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
bG Gallery presents dialoguing installations by artists Marisa Caichiolo and Melissa Meier. While coming from different backgrounds, these two artists have individually developed bodies of work entitled SKIN that use photography and installation to explore the complex relationship between fashion and female empowerment. Both artists mix sculpture, photography, clothing into their installation. Though the mediums and subject matter is similar, each body of work is distinct, as seen from two very unique perspectives.
Melissa Meier is an artist from Brazil who creates and photographs sculptural clothing hybrids utilizing natural materials such as leaves, stones, fur, scales, sticks, feathers and shells. Inspired by Brazilian Carnival and Native American skinwalkers, her wearable constructions blend female empowerment with a self-created mythology. Meier states, “At first I was inspired by the legends of indigenous people and how they used the skins of animals to transform into them, creating a bridge between the human and animal worlds. But as my work matured, I became equally interested in the future of fashion as an extreme form of kinetic sculpture.”
Marisa Caichiolo is an artist from Argentina who views clothing as an extension of our skin. “Her visual work has travelled through and a variety of concerns; however, it is currently focused on working and investigating the skin as a metaphor that allows her to create a poetical speech about the different problems and complexities related to identity. All this through a thorough exploration of the different artistic forms the author uses to express herself. Skin is a part of the body; it is a part of all of us even though it differs from one person to another. Every skin has its own story, past, present, and future. Penetrating the epidermis and looking beyond is not an easy task: its interpretations and undertones are very fluctuating. Caichiolo appreciates this organ as a wrapper, as a map that separates our inner and outer worlds.” Daniel G. Alfonso.
