Opening reception: Saturday, May 5th | 5pm-7pm

Hugomento in collaboration with Jack Fischer Gallery is pleased to present Form / Ability a contemporary fiber art exhibition by Ealish Wilson at Minnesota Street Project - gallery #211. Join us for the opening reception on May 5, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. The show will be up through May 30, 2018.

My work investigates pattern and its transformation through surface manipulation. Influenced by travel, architecture, the aesthetic traditions from Japan and the Arts and Crafts movement, my textile constructions showcase materiality using a variety of substrates and structural form created through a process of continual manipulation. 

The printed surface is where the manipulation starts. Photography plays an essential yet subtle role in my work. I capture imagery from daily life, various cultures and architecture to create my digitally manipulated textiles. 

Using techniques normally associated with fashion, such a pleating and smocking, I work meticulously by hand to create structure, which starts to morph the custom-made textile into new iterations. Once, again, I turn to the photographic process to rework the patterns and print the transformed textiles onto cloth before finally pleating and smocking into my textile constructions. This dialogue between architecture, patterns, photography and material is the fundamental thread throughout my work, honoring the time to create beautiful objects that endure. 

Ealish Wilson has a Masters degree in design from the Scottish College of Textiles and a BA in Textiles and History from Chester University in the UK. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Bankfield Museum in Halifax and the Hove Museum in Hove, UK, as well as at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan. Locally, she has shown at the Sanchez Art Center, Asian Art Museum, Berkeley Arts Center, and in an exhibition curated by Gensler Architects at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. In 2011, the Daiwa Foundation in London selected her work for a group exhibition entitled Small Bites, which traveled to the Nagoya University of the Arts & Science in Nagoya, Japan and to Gallery Gallery in Kyoto, Japan. Collections include the Manx Museum's Contemporary Art Collection and Nottingham's Castle Gallery's Contemporary Textile Collection in the UK. She currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA.