Imperial Leather, 2021
digital prints on silk twill
dimensions variable (ø 130–183 cm each)
With thanks to Elliott Bryce Foulkes and Alix Higgins

Commissioned by Runway Journal for No Show, 12 February – 7 March 2021, curated by Aarna Hanley, Carriageworks, Sydney

Imperial Leather is a series of silk textiles modelled on the disposable sheet masks found in skincare products. Draped along the exposed scaffold, the cheekbones of the exhibition, its physicality reflects the fatigue of the texts that appear and recede into its wrinkles: ‘crow’s foot’, ‘sleepy hollows’, parenthetical nasolabial folds. Stretched, sagged and frayed, each mask bears the imprints of its use – tracing the artist’s visage while simultaneously concealing it.

Photo: Zan Wimberley