Window Fringe
Wood, Canvas, Ceramic Terra-cotta, Waxed String
52” x 26” x 36” each
52” x 26” x 36” each
K.I.T. (Keep in Touch) Terrain Biennial
Springfield, IL
Springfield, IL
Window Fringe continues my fascination with domestic and public space. By creating prop-like flower window boxes, I combine and confuse what belongs inside or outside. I question what is authentic. The falseness of these sculptures is not unlike a manicured garden, floral curtains, or a fake flower arrangement. As we have all become more acquainted with our homes, the boundaries between our familiar surroundings and the world feel simultaneously closer and further apart.
https://terrainexhibitions.org/springfield-il-21
https://terrainexhibitions.org/springfield-il-21
Similar Familiar
ROY G BIV Gallery
ROY Presents: July Emerging Artists
This work explores the boundary between domestic life and abstraction. I consider not only ornamental patterns in my work, but the blurring of reality during quarantine and the absurd mis-performance of the things I make. The processes I do on a daily basis: folding the laundry, closing the blinds, and wrapping myself in a blanket bring me resentful comfort and slip into my work. There is anger in my waiting.
ROY Talks “Similar Familiar” with Batres Gilvin, Gregory Hatch & Britny Wainwright https://youtu.be/GMQ1heW2Zpk
ROY Talks “Similar Familiar” with Batres Gilvin, Gregory Hatch & Britny Wainwright https://youtu.be/GMQ1heW2Zpk
Couched is an exhibition featuring the sculptural work of Britny Wainwright. Fascinated with domestic objects and material mis-performance, the artist combines vinyl and ceramic to support, protect, bulge, and defamiliarize objects. Terra-cotta hangers support vinyl pouches of delicate ceramic leaves derived from plants and women’s bodies. Like most vegetal ornament in decorative art history, the themes of sexuality and abundance are read between the lines, or in this case, between the leaves.
Wainwright’s interest in the couch, the “ugly” couch in particular, is also present in this exhibition. Often encased in a clear plastic slipcover to shield them from the humans that sit upon them, these “ugly” couches live a strange life between idyllic landscape, lush garden, and our popcorn dust. The motifs that dot the surface of our beloved couches often go overlooked, and Wainwright is on a mission to make us look again. Couched will feature an interactive couch that invites viewers to settle and feel the way their body sinks and sags the encasement.
https://vinegarprojects.org/britny-wainwright-2021
Wainwright’s interest in the couch, the “ugly” couch in particular, is also present in this exhibition. Often encased in a clear plastic slipcover to shield them from the humans that sit upon them, these “ugly” couches live a strange life between idyllic landscape, lush garden, and our popcorn dust. The motifs that dot the surface of our beloved couches often go overlooked, and Wainwright is on a mission to make us look again. Couched will feature an interactive couch that invites viewers to settle and feel the way their body sinks and sags the encasement.
https://vinegarprojects.org/britny-wainwright-2021
I Made This for You
2021, terracotta, tulle, flannel, embroidery floss, 9” x 9” x 5”
Tiny Pedestal Project at Dream Clinic Project Space, Columbus, OH
Bedclothes
Solo Exhibition
Gibbs Street Gallery,
VisArts, Rockville, MD
Fall-Winter 2019
This exhibition features several new works that continue Wainwright’s vision of decoration as a medium of power. The objects in Bedclothes are transformations of pattern into sculpture. Wainwright explores the intersection of materials: ceramic, fiber, and paint to estrange the things we’re most familiar with.
Everyday domestic situations are referenced in the objects of Bedclothes. Padded and patterned blankets are slung over wooden racks. A half-made too-small bed occupies a corner of the gallery. But this work is a stranger. The colors are overly saturated, and any utility has been removed. Instead, they function as visual objects.
Bedclothes borrows repetitive domestic motifs from couches, curtains, and wallpaper. Modernism excluded these decorative things from being powerful; tied them to femininity and a lack of self-control. Wainwright reclaims this practice with a feminist agenda. She rejects the passive qualities associated with it, and instead uses it with authority.
https://www.visartscenter.org/event/giulia-livi-britny-wainwright/