Textile Installations (1996-2007):
Influenced by the Couture Series, Cotton Candy Bunny Ears consists of seventy-one suspended sculptures, grouped to create a fluid moving contour. The site-specific design responded to the particular space in which it was to be exhibited, The University of Kentucky’s Tuska Contemporary Art Center – mirroring one of its dramatic curvilinear walls. Other influences included a swarm of bees or wasps, leaves blowing in the wind, and spring flowers, which were the antithesis of winter, the actual season during the exhibit. The Untitled work referenced anthropo- and zoomorphic characteristics to create unique sculptures. The forms were made by hand-sewing organza fabric to wire armatures, the latter being 3-dimensional contour line drawings.
For two consecutive years, I collaborated with Helena G. Mesa, my sister and a poet, as well as my mother, Elena Mesa, a fabric painter, to complete two installations. La Charada: Dreams & Images was based on the Cuban-Chinese game of the same name. It consists of forty transparent, hand-sewn, suspended gowns, which viewers can walk amongst. Each gown has a correlating haiku, a Charada image painted on silk fabric, and a dream image painted on ceramic tiles. Hunting Sweet Melons integrated poems and paintings with seven kinetic sculptures.
Influenced by the Couture Series, Cotton Candy Bunny Ears consists of seventy-one suspended sculptures, grouped to create a fluid moving contour. The site-specific design responded to the particular space in which it was to be exhibited, The University of Kentucky’s Tuska Contemporary Art Center – mirroring one of its dramatic curvilinear walls. Other influences included a swarm of bees or wasps, leaves blowing in the wind, and spring flowers, which were the antithesis of winter, the actual season during the exhibit. The Untitled work referenced anthropo- and zoomorphic characteristics to create unique sculptures. The forms were made by hand-sewing organza fabric to wire armatures, the latter being 3-dimensional contour line drawings.
For two consecutive years, I collaborated with Helena G. Mesa, my sister and a poet, as well as my mother, Elena Mesa, a fabric painter, to complete two installations. La Charada: Dreams & Images was based on the Cuban-Chinese game of the same name. It consists of forty transparent, hand-sewn, suspended gowns, which viewers can walk amongst. Each gown has a correlating haiku, a Charada image painted on silk fabric, and a dream image painted on ceramic tiles. Hunting Sweet Melons integrated poems and paintings with seven kinetic sculptures.