New At The Aldrich In Ridgefield: 'Chiffon Thomas: The Cavernous'

**News Release Submitted by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum**

Aug. 23, 2023

Chiffon Thomas: The Cavernous is the artist’s solo museum debut. It will unveil a new body of work including the artist’s first public sculpture. Thomas’ interdisciplinary practice, spanning embroidery, collage, sculpture, drawing, performance, and installation, examines the ruptures that exist where race, gender expression, and biography intersect. His practice is informed by a background in education, percussion, and stop motion animation, as well as a childhood steeped in religion. He joins material in architectural configurations with ambiguous forms of his and others’ bodies, structured and sutured in urethane, foam, plaster, and leather, to illustrate portals of regenerative space. Interrogating a legacy of colonization, Black injustice, and classism in the US, Thomas entwines materials resonant with personal and collective histories of trauma and repair, as well as resilience and transformation. Sliding between representation and abstraction, Thomas’ methodology underscores society’s binary opposition, finding agency and care within the gaps and fissures that endure.

The artist’s first museum catalogue will accompany the exhibition, featuring an essay by the curator, Amy Smith-Stewart, Chief Curator.

Chiffon Thomas: The Cavernous will be on view September 15, 2023 to March 17, 2024