…This strangeness in Splan’s work results from her deliberate integration of classic fiber-based crafts with medical imagery and materials. Delicate doilies replicate illustrated diagrams of microscopic, often lethal viruses; overscaled latch-hooked pillows mimic the popular antidepressants Prozac, Thorazine, and Zoloft. Similarly, a hand-knit scarf is made from blood-filled medical tubing connected to an IV line in the wearer’s arm, and traditional wallpaper patterns are traced with the artist’s own blood. Each of these beautifully crafted objects is simultaneously perverse and compelling…
Mara Holt Skov, Form Follows Infection, essay in exhibition catalog for Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects
Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects
This volume reveals a major trend taking place today in visual and material culture the radical appropriation of consumer goods as raw material for art- and object-making. A growing number of artists, craftspeople, and designers are realigning traditional craft practices with already manufactured objects and materials to marry the uniquely handmade with the uniformly mass-produced. Published to coincide with a show at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, Manufactured offers an arresting look at the new crossover of craft, art, and design, and an exciting new cultural genre.
