Karyl Sisson: Fissures & Connections

The Craft in America Center is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Karyl Sisson. The materials of everyday life, both past and present, are the fibers that Sisson weaves together to form sculptural and textured forms. Sisson draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Los Angeles’ landscape, microbiology, and fashion manufacturing. Glimpsing back at her work over three decades, pattern, repetition, and structure are unifying and focal themes that she explores dimensionally from her foundation in basketry and needlework. This exhibition will feature early works alongside her most recent creations-a glimpse into the oeuvre of this remarkable artist.

After studying painting and drawing at NYU, Sisson moved to Los Angeles and entered graduate school in 1983 at UCLA where she studied with Bernard Kester, one of the pioneering voices in the establishment of fiber as an art medium in the 1960s and 1970s. Ed Rossbach, Judy Chicago, Miriam Shapiro, Esther Parkhurst, and Neda al Hilali are among the artists who inspired her work and exploration of fiber early on.

Part scavenger, part collector, and wholly meticulous craftsperson, Sisson’s work delves deeply into the possibilities that exist within the discarded and overlooked. Over the decades, Sisson has transformed familiar objects such as vintage zippers, clothespins, tape measure, buttons, and paper straws into abstract forms, vessels, and architectural structures. In her choice of reinventing undervalued materials, Sisson manages to confront domesticity and traditional gender roles. Her recent work with paper straws draws inspiration from cells and organisms, which inform the objects as she composes them and they grow seemingly naturally.

“My practice is a means for exploring the physical and psychological properties of holes, cavities, insides, and outsides. I’m influenced by the beauty and simplicity of ancient, indigenous, and animal architecture, organic growth, and patterns found in nature and in the nature of man.”

– Karyl Sisson

Learn more about her work at www.karylsisson.com

Photos by Madison Metro

Craft in America is also supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. www.lacountyarts.org