On the Precipice
November 2 – 28, 2021
Solo Exhibition by Svetlana Shigroff
The iconography of this exhibition stems from an earlier piece titled Black Bikini and Tan Hiking Boots (2020). BBTHB was completed and shown just months before the pandemic hit the USA. Through the use of the screaming skull motif, it signals a transformative precipice; simultaneously representing terror and rapture, beauty and vulgarity, life and death. The tumultuous swath of time following the completion of this initial work has propelled her to extend and expand her study of the aforementioned concepts in her new work. Where BBTHB focused on the consequence of violence and the lived womxn experience; the new work for On The Precipice turns inward. Like a mirror, the work looks directly at the violence inflicted on oneself and the psychology of trauma and mental illness. It is an expression grappling with the experience of an endless global pandemic.
Svetlana Shigroff is originally from Australia and has been living and working in Southern California for the last eleven years. She has worked within the fashion industry as a Designer and Production manager, created stage costumes, and toured as a wardrobe manager. Currently, Svetlana’s studio practice consists of mixed media tapestries, sculpture, and art-to-wear apparel. She uses reclaimed materials, end bolts, and dead-stock fabrics in the production of both her tapestries and apparel pieces. This has contributed to a trademark color palette that reflects the fast fashion industry and the overproduction and consumption of clothes and textiles. Extramundane staging, dream interpretation, and the psychedelic aesthetic are reoccurring elements within Svetlana’s work and she utilizes processes of tufting and stitching as a kinetic incantation and a means to underscore the multiplicity of the self. 2020 saw a pivotal shift to nonprofit work where Svetlana became a Lead Project Coordinator and Production Manager for Project Mask LA, a volunteer-based organization that makes and distributes fabric masks, pillows, and blankets to the unhoused and under-served communities. In addition, Svetlana works as a teaching artist and conducts hand tufting workshops at the Palm Springs Art Museum and offers tapestry workshops out of her desert art studio in Flamingo Heights, CA.
