Opening Reception, Orphan P2: a Solo Exhibition by Janelle Abbott

2301 1st Avenue,Seattle WA 98121

08 July, 2022

Description

Somber, bright, beautiful, and despairing—Orphan P2 is a world where furniture, art, and fashion are fused. Part of the Belltown Art Walk. About the installation Somber, bright, beautiful, and despairing—Janelle Abbott’s Orphan P2 is a world where furniture, art, and fashion are fused. With chairs that have sweaters built-in and rugs with pants woven into the weft, this interactive installation invites visitors to become a part of the work. Whether the wearable furniture pieces are sanctuaries or straightjackets, is up to the visitors to decide. Large scale hand painted murals of gloomy and foreboding skies frame the vignettes of solitary wearables accompanied by small cement sculptures. In this installation, Abbott will debut a new series of soft wall sculptures called Wall Dolls, made from second hand clothing, bedding, yarn, paint, and more; the protagonists of Orphan P2, the Wall Dolls will also reference Abbott’s brand new collection of zero waste, one of a kind clothing which will walk the gallery like a runway in her Thursday July 21st live fashion show event. There will be a lot to see and do all month, including workshops, contests, and events; half of the gallery space will be Abbott’s studio where she will daily be live, creating, making, mending, and exploring her world of art and fashion fusion. This series is sponsored by the Belltown Art Walk and Sassafras. About the artist Janelle Abbott was born into the fashion industry—her parents owned a clothing manufacturing company. With a reverence for the labor behind clothing, Janelle graduated with a BFA from Parsons (2012). By that time, fast fashion had taken over, subjugating millions of garment workers to unethical, slave-like conditions in order artificially lower the cost of clothing and bolster profits for CEOs / share-holders. In the face of the unethical, exploitive, anti-ecological agenda of corporate fashion, Janelle carved a path committed to upcycling, hand craft, and the zero waste methodology. Whether clothing, wearable furniture, sculpture, and tapestries, Janelle creates with used materials that hold emotional and historical value. Dense, clashing, and rhythmic, Janelle’s work is scrappy, unapologetic, and a testament to the real humans labor behind every consumer product we engage with.