by Bryony Roberts
Tailored is a collection of shapes that interlock with human bodies. Fitting closely around shoulders, chests, and hips, the objects offer intimate contact on a level not usually found in furniture or architecture. This exhibition builds upon the artist’s ongoing work with pre-existing buildings, in which she measures and extends the idiosyncrasies of historic architecture. Her work focuses on specificity rather than generality—how the details of an existing condition can be generative, rather than the imposition of an external system. In Tailored, the pre-existing condition is human bodies, each defined by individual shapes and sizes. While each piece in the show is tailored to a different person, the project produces surprising commonalities in proportion and dimension between people of different genders and sizes—generating an ambiguity between the specific and the general. The abstraction and ambiguity of the shapes produces an open playfulness as people find their own configurations of interlocking.
Bryony Roberts is an architectural designer and scholar. Her practice, Bryony Roberts Studio, combines strategies from architecture, visual art, and preservation to transform existing spaces. Roberts is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Oslo School of Architecture in Norway, and has completed recent projects at the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, the Federal Plaza in Chicago, the American Academy in Rome and the Neutra VDL House in Los Angeles.
