In a culture where seasons change and financial behemoths like LVMH and Gucci Group fuel big fashion, visual artists who cross over garner cult followings. Some work the graveyard shift as designers—successfully and literally.
Megan Marrin |
Take Megan Marrin, who took jobs in fashion casting to pay the bills before her first solo painting/collage exhibit premiered in Chelsea’s Mehr Gallery last month. When a friend showed her some jewelry making techniques, on a whim, Marrin searched for dolls’ heads on eBay. Several weeks later, she was pairing orange and white turquoise beads, stringing miniature craniums, and hiring German gravediggers to find more.
“I had no idea there was a big subculture of doll head collectors,” she tells GrandLife. Marrin’s doll heads come from the Black Forest, where excavators uncover the remains of bombed out factories that produced Bisque porcelain figurines in the 19th century. Each necklace seems to tell a story, much like her recent collages. The tableaus are based on an Appalachian folksong, “Two Sisters,” which tells of one sister who pushes the other to her death in Cain and Abel fashion.
Back to the land of the living, adventurers and anarchists revere history and question perception and aesthetics. Artist/designer Ambriel Floyd based her recent installation of printed wall hangings, which lined the lobby of Tribeca Grand during this year’s Armory Show, on the Hudson River. Indeed, her Spring collection—men’s and women’s polos and tunics—resemble geometric sail patterns. Floyd designs shirts, bags, hats, hoods, pendants that spell “Love,” and crocheted cuff bracelets—the latter with the help of her grandma Amma from South Carolina.
Ambriel Floyd |
Floyd, the artist, is also working on an actual water vessel, “Sheerwater.” She’s reupholstering berths on this working boat that dates back almost seventy years. She’ll attend wooden boat school this summer in Maine.
Graphic designers Adrian Cowen and Diva Pittala have erected sculptural objects for art collector Tim Nye, but they are better known for their cool graphic tees, jackets, and hoodies under the label Pleasure Principle. Each features one of a kind imagery that resembles meteors and lightening bolts, among other forms. This is not your boardwalk quick art, kids. Cowen tells me the next step will be a line of easy access couture. Stay tuned.
Susan Cianciolo, an installation artist who incorporates performance, including rock bands like Sonic Youth, on her stage, could be considered the pioneer of the new wave of crossover. She began a decade ago erecting stand-alone rooms filled with fabric figures and crocheted booties. From there, she customized clothes from vintage and thrift pieces. And now she takes her shop on the road, traveling to customers around the city with bags of fabrics. Her customers also visit her studio to check out samples.
Susan Cianciolo |
Another vintage embellisher, Matt Damhave, the original anarchist behind “Imitation of Christ” (remember the faux funeral?) will open a gallery next month of his collage work. “Exacto stuff drawing and pure works on paper,” he says. His men’s clothing line, to debut in September, will constitute “Margiela meets Patagonia.” How’s that for high/low, art/street appeal?
Check 'em out:
Ambriel Floyd and Pleasure Principle
at Seven, 110 Mercer Street
Plus more Ambriel here
Megan Marrin earrings (starting at $100) and necklaces ($250-$550)
Susan Cianciolo
Matthew Damhave’s art debut Contemporary Men Can Master Only A Heap That Represents the Debris of Existence at HAIE Gallery, 208 Forsyth Street, April 10-May 10, 6p.m. to 8 p.m.
