Willa Schwabsky

These pieces reflect my ongoing interest in costume and the performative act of “dressing up.” Exploring the world of swim and lingerie—clothing that is perhaps most intimate with the human form, and, when unworn, whose negative space essentially traces out the body that inhabits it—and using unconventional materials, such as industrial rubber, wool felt, and leather–materials that would be either entirely nonfunctional or at least uncomfortable in these roles–I aim to create strange, otherworldly pieces, blurring the line between sexy and bizarre (does it exist?). Placed over bold, felted colors, these delicates evoke the body and the figurative, but abstract it through the use of nonsense materials, and point to an understanding (or non-understanding) behind what we put between our skin and the outside world, what is supposed to expose us and what is supposed to protect us. The video Boots is a study into the music tv programs of the 1960s and 70s, the staged aesthetic of the shows, the colorful costumes and sets, paired with a live audience—all combining to create an eerie destabilization of reality. Multiplying myself three times, I set up my own girl group, and imitated the Nancy Sinatra music video for her song These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, lip-syncing on top of a flattened background of pages turning in a book. Installed on loop and, depending on the space and time, either projected to be human-size or installed miniscule on a monitor, the video is a funny and hypnotic attempt to become one of these “singing heads.”

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