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Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
24 × 36 in.;
Textiles, gold thread, and pen;
2025
"China Dolls" is informed by the Chinese medicine doll. Carved from ivory, these objects catered to a tourist consumer market. Rendering languorous, female nudes, these trinkets were believed to constitute a medicinal tool. Women were said to use these models to index maladies to doctors, while preserving their own corporeal modesty. This work increases the scale of these intimate objects, clustering them into a two-dimensional composition. The women's bodies are constructed with reused fabric, simulating the intricate designs of blue and white porcelain. Stitched with gold thread, the interlacing figures evoke the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, or the repair of broken parts. Much like the original figurines of anonymous, sexualized, and objectified women, their fragmented and fractured subjectivity aggregates into a woven tapestry of solidarity. The visual confection is accented with shards of reclaimed porcelain, attending to the ornamentalization of Asian women.
Website: www.luzfrye.com
IG: @noelleybarr
24 × 36 in.;
Textiles, gold thread, and pen;
2025
"China Dolls" is informed by the Chinese medicine doll. Carved from ivory, these objects catered to a tourist consumer market. Rendering languorous, female nudes, these trinkets were believed to constitute a medicinal tool. Women were said to use these models to index maladies to doctors, while preserving their own corporeal modesty. This work increases the scale of these intimate objects, clustering them into a two-dimensional composition. The women's bodies are constructed with reused fabric, simulating the intricate designs of blue and white porcelain. Stitched with gold thread, the interlacing figures evoke the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, or the repair of broken parts. Much like the original figurines of anonymous, sexualized, and objectified women, their fragmented and fractured subjectivity aggregates into a woven tapestry of solidarity. The visual confection is accented with shards of reclaimed porcelain, attending to the ornamentalization of Asian women.
Website: www.luzfrye.com
IG: @noelleybarr
