Abstract paintings become haute couture dresses; a chair becomes a birthing place for mushrooms; and vegetable bags become high-design sculptures in an exhibit that explores transformation and renewal.
Project Runway designer Christopher Straub, fiber-art pioneer Nancy MacKenzie, abstract painter Patrick K. Pryor, and eco-sculptor Kate Casanova transform ordinary objects and found materials into distinctive artworks in “Fashioned: One Becomes Another.”
In a true collaboration between fashion and high art, Minnesota native and Project Runway contestant Christopher Straub turns giant, abstract paintings by Patrick K. Pryor into eight designer dresses that function as much as fashion as they do elaborate three-dimensional sculptures.
Pryor’s colorful and abstract images were as large as 60 square feet before he handed them over to Straub for re-imagining. The end result is a series of breath-taking canvas dresses that honor Pryor’s aesthetic through Straub’s unique cuts and swirling designs.
Minnesota native Kate Casanova also reconstructs objects, turning an old living-room chair into soil for a fruiting mushroom plot. Giant pink mushrooms grow from the cushion, creating a vibrant, living artwork.
Nancy MacKenzie has been using materials for a long time, in a way that we now call recycling. She sculpts beautiful intricate artworks from a mix of bailing twine, plastic vegetable bags, and twigs. Her vegetable bag sculptures are so elaborate and colorful they conceal their humble origin.
In this exhibition, the artists by transforming and refashioning their materials investigate and explore problems and relationships that are important to them. We invite you to join them in the spirit of discovery.