PAST COFFEE TALK
Glitches & Veils
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PAST COFFEE TALK
Glitches & Veils
Join us on Friday, March 18th at 11am ET on Instagram Live for an exhibition walkthrough of Glitches & Veils, a solo exhibition of new and recent sculptural paintings by Emma Safir comprised of photographic collages printed on textiles, curated by Sally Eaves Hughes.
Glitches & Veils features works from three of Safir’s recent series, Rewound Glitch, Veils, and Woven Mirrors. Each work begins with a range of instinctive photographs by Safir, including images of windows, fabric, and nature within a domestic context. Scanned and superimposed, the resulting photographic collages are printed on fabric. Safir then employs traditional textile techniques such as weaving, smocking, and upholstery to further abstract, build up, and manipulate the images. In these works, Safir considers the boundless interactions we have with digital interfaces and the assumption and desire that we would have autonomy in the use of our own screens. Questioning society’s obsession with hardness and simplicity, Safir’s panels smock the grid, emphasizing the materiality of the image in an ever-expanding digital landscape.
Emma Safir (b. 1990 NYC) is an artist who employs material exploration and manipulation of fabric through weaving techniques, smocking, lens-based media, rasterization, upholstery, among other methods. Her work functions as screen simulations, proxies and portals. Safir is interested in hierarchies of labor, especially in their relationship to gender and digitization. Safir holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Printmaking and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in Painting & Printmaking. She has exhibited recently at SHIN HAUS at Shin Gallery, Lyles & King, Pentimenti Gallery and TW Fine Art. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Textiles Art Center in Brooklyn, and a participant in the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program in Manhattan. Safir lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Sally Eaves Hughes is a curator and writer based in New York. Her research focuses on abstraction, materiality, and geo-politics. A 2021–2022 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program, Hughes holds a master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies from Columbia University. Her curated exhibitions are Common Space at Oolite Arts, Miami (2021) and Mary Sibande at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, New York (2019). Recently, she contributed to the development of exhibitions including Carl Craig, Sam Gilliam, and Dorothea Rockburne at Dia Art Foundation as well as Visibility Machines. Harun Farocki and Trevor Paglen and My Barbarian at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has been published in Art in America, Art Papers, The Brooklyn Rail, and Sculpture Magazine.