Shelley Socolofsky
Trade Blanket (hybrid bride), 2012
90 in x 60 in
Shelley Socolofsky
Fata Morgana, 2008
78 in x 66 in
Shelley Socolofsky’s Artist Statement
My work is concerned with ritual, perception, migration, and the fluidity of cultural identity. Culling historic archives, I look for visual examples of social patterning and disparities in cultural memory. Sampling fragments from these images as points of entry, I weave intricate tapestries as a way to mend, alter, and reinvent the archive. Through this practice, I work towards an aesthetic result that is informed by long histories of textile production and its connection to pattern, ornament, decoration, labor, and its orientation to the ‘low’ arts.
Shelley Socolofsky
Soliloquy, 2001
162 in x 60 in
Shelley Socolofsky’s Biography
Shelley Socolofsky received her MFA from the University of Oregon and has studied Gobelins Tapestry and Medieval Art History in Poitier, Paris, and Uzes, France, Jacquard Hand Weaving at the Fondazione Arte Della Seta Lisio in Florence, Italy, and Digital Jacquard CAD Design at the Jacquard Center in North Carolina. A recipient of Individual Artist Fellowships from the Chenven Foundation of New York and the Oregon Arts Commission, her tapestries have been commissioned for numerous public art collections. Currently on the faculty of Oregon College of Art & Craft, Shelley considers the action of weaving as an interlacement of opposing systems and investigates cloth making and the slowness of tapestry weaving as a platform for social activism.