Bio
Curriculum Vitae. pdf
The topographic structures and threaded seismographs I create are inspired by the complexities of being a woman. They proliferate from my personal life, narrative and history. I think of my work as part artifact, part preservation and part female mystique. I manipulate fabrics and textiles to create weird, funny, and elegant sculptures, drawings and couture. The signifier of my style is that everything is just a little off and unbalanced while trying to remain composed and pulled together.
I am drawn to the confection of womaness. I am interested in the interim where the psychological and physical appearances of a woman intersect. My work investigates several archetypal psychologies such as the Electra Complex, Hysteria, Sex and Love Addiction, and Sexual Fetishism. A reoccurring theme in my recent work has been female hysteria, the Victorian Woman’s condition of having wandering uteri that cause a composed woman to be as it were “unravel.” I am searching for the visceral in objects of desire, devotion, and nostalgia.
While sewing is my primary medium, I go back and forth between textile sculpture, ink drawing and mono-type printing. I think of sewing as a response to the times I live in. To say that I sew daily is an understatement. I am drawn to the tradition and simplicity of hand stitching. In the chaos of a rapidly changing world, hand sewing makes me slow down, act deliberately and mark with intention. In my prolific obsession with sewing, I am able to raise certain questions about the traditional roles of women in contemporary society, the role of traditional craft in contemporary art process, and the preservation of tradition in a rapidly changing world.
About the Artist
Wylie Sofia Garcia was born in Houston, Texas in 1980. She studied alternative photographic processes in undergrad at the University of Chicago, where she graduated with academic and departmental honors. She mentored with Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Sharon Kopriva, Helen Miranda Wilson, Jim Peters, Joel Janowitz and Paul Bowen during her MFA candidacy at Massachusetts College of Art where she graduated in 2008. Although she keeps an arm and a leg in Southern Louisiana, she currently lives in Burlington, Vermont where her studio is located in the Historic Post Industrial South End Arts District.