PRESS RELEASE
“Signature Selfie, Volume 1: A-G, M, V.”
March 14th-16th 2023
De Bouwput Gallery
Ferdinand Huyckstraat 74
1061 HW Amsterdam, NL.
AMSTERDAM - De Bouwput is hosting the presentation of "Signature Selfie Volume 1: A-G, M, V." featuring work by Mariana Vidal Escabi. The series of hand-printed textiles on view was started at AGALab in the Summer of 2021 as part of their AIR program, and it is now coming back to Amsterdam, and The Bouw showed for the first time at De Bouwput. The show will run from March 14th to 16th, 2023, with a finissage happening on Thursday, March 16th, from 6-9 PM.
Signature Selfie explores the relationship between graphic images and the body and how the symbols, signs, and visual markings we wear affect the perception of ourselves.
As a series of medium and large-scale hand-printed textiles inspired by Wiener Werkstatte's use of monograms as personal logos, the western tradition of linear writing that resembles linear thought, and the uniquely personal and abstracted nature of handwriting and handwritten signatures. These prints hover between abstraction and figuration and invite the viewer to question the ubiquity and purpose of visual representations of identity.
Each piece comprises cotton shirting yardage fabric with a silk-screened image of geometric and organic shapes that form letters. The way these letters have been overlapped and layered creates a monogram. It is intervened on the fabric's selvage with heat-pressed markings in metallic foil or matte vinyl resembling handwriting exercises on the edges of a page. These suggest something that continues somewhere outside the picture plane: like a bolt of printed fabric with its continuous patterns; or pages of a notebook full of scribbles and doodles.
Suspended by wooden frames in the middle of the room with various added elements that nod to the tradition of garment making (straps, hems, and finishes), it is not clear if they are supposed to be draped on a body or hung to be displayed.
On the walls, we see the creation process, iteration, and experimentation shown in more detail, resembling the repetition in writing exercises interpreted as the constant search for different ways of presenting oneself—our diverse identities.