Stephanie Metz: In the Glow

September 14 – December 29, 2024

Santa Clara, 8/26/24– The Triton Museum of Art presents Stephanie Metz: In the Glow, an exhibition debuting a series of evocative fiber sculptures. Wool felt and body-like forms combined with reflected color explore themes of soft power, aesthetic perception, and the paradoxes of female life.

The free-standing and wall-mounted sculptures and immersive installation transcend stereotypical notions of textile art as decorative and domestic. Metz uses a nuanced abstract visual language to allude to the contradictions of a woman’s experiences— vulnerability and resilience, internal and external perceptions, and working within and against gender biases and expectations. The felt material used to make the sculptures reflect these contradictions, embodying both the tender and the tough by being supple yet durable.

Sculpted from wool fibers compressed into freestanding dense shapes or sutured from pieces of thick, smooth industrial felt, Metz’s visceral organic forms incorporate carefully placed pink pigment. Pink, a color loaded with cultural and symbolic significance, highlights both conformity and resistance to gender binaries. Optical interactions between the white sculptures and reflected pink light reveal lines and contours and draw attention to the very act of seeing color.

A monumental stitched industrial felt sculpture at the center of the gallery invites visitors to immerse themselves ‘inside the glow’ created between the 16- by- 20- foot ‘curtain’ of undulating abstracted figurative forms and a wall of fluorescent pink paint. Stephanie Metz: In the Glow expands conventional definitions of the feminine and explores how edgy softness can hold space, command presence, and provoke thought.

The exhibition will be on view from September 14 to December 29, with an opening reception on Saturday, September 28 from 2 – 4pm.