What does it mean for a textile to be confined to the four walls of a stretcher bar? Does it stay a textile or become a painting?
About Allegra
Allegra Samp is an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She holds a 2019 Textiles BFA from California College of the Arts, where she focused on embroidery, weaving, and screen print. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she takes great inspiration from her surroundings and the pop culture of her childhood. Her work examines the gendering of art mediums; primarily combining the hyper masculinity of painting with the femininity of thread.
“I look back at my childhood, the years between 1995 and 2005 distinctly implanted in my memory bank. These years represent simpler times, innocent, carefree, Lizzie McGuire filled memories. How often do you watch your favorite childhood films? Are they still your favorites? Mine are. I yearn to be eight again, long unbrushed hair down my back, clay and paint splattered Tony Hawk by Target t-shirt, knee zip-off cargos and unlaced Avril Lavigne inspired sneakers. I run inside to catch the new episode of That’s So Raven as I decide between Bionicles or Polly Pockets as my commercial break activity.
Through graphic embroidery, weaving, screen print and sewing, I investigate my obsession with nostalgia and background as a painter. Confining every textile of mine to rectangular stretcher bars, referencing my multi-media’s never ending battle to define itself as fine art, in a painting dominated world. In my work I explore my unorthodox elementary school, I recreate my childhood artwork, I revisit favored locations and family dynamics, I capture feelings and emblems that surrounded my favorite years, before I became riddled with post-traumatic-stress disorder at the age of ten. Excavating my past trauma while simultaneously mending the once frozen parts of my brain. Through the act of making, I examine the anxiety and reflective nostalgia that drives my work, accepting the fact that the past is the past. Instead of literally recreating, I savor the emotions brought on by its recollection; attempting to understand the merge of pop-culture and my personal sentimentality.”
– Allegra Samp
allegrasamp.com
instagram.com/a11egra
On display for one week beginning 11.20.20
Helms Design Center at 8745 Washington Boulevard
All artwork is copyrighted work of the artist. All rights reserved. Images not to be used without permission.
