Name/Title
fossil thingsEntry/Object ID
2020.02Description
Mixed materials, pink, orange, green, and black woven pieceArtwork Details
Medium
jacquard woven cloth, dye, stitching, EmbroideryContext
Leandro works with textiles and furniture to explore cultural identity and domestic space. She combines multiple techniques to create fabric panels and upholstery, layering jacquard weaving, embroidery, and dyes in abstracted compositions. Often her works incorporate floral patterns reminiscent of the natural environment in Costa Rica, where her family immigrated to the United States from, and Miami, where they currently reside. Lenadro's use of found furniture is also tied to personal history and experience and her mother's domestic work. As a child, the artist accompanied her mother to clean homes, where these would often sit on unfamiliar couches and chairs while her mother worked. For Leandro, this experience was both an unusual form of intimacy with strangers as well as an introduction to commodities that she otherwise was not exposed to, in the form of modern design and luxury goods, Over the past few years, she has begun to work with reupholsters to use her textiles on furniture she acquires in thrift stores and alleys, infusing stranger's belonging with her personal history. Interspersed in the space are small plaster objects that her father, a recently self-taught artist and construction worker, has mailed to her. Leandro seeks to build a new form of domestic environment in the gallery, envisioning a living room like immersive environment.Acquisition
Accession
2020.02Acquisition Method
PurchaseCredit Line
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, Courtesy of the artistLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Class
ArtNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsLOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Jacquard looms, Abstract worksInterpretative Labels
Label Type
Object LabelLabel
Melissa Leandro (b. 1989)
fossil things, 2018
Jacquard woven cloth, dye, stitching, embroidery
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
2020.2
Melissa Leandro works with textiles and found furniture to explore cultural identity and domestic space. She combines multiple techniques to create abstract compositions in fabric panels and upholstery, layering jacquard weaving, embroidery, and dyes. In fossil things, Leandro’s custom fabric has been mounted on stretcher bars and hangs on the wall like a traditional painting. fossil things expands upon ideas generated in Leandro’s sketchbook, as drawings inform stitched lines and embroidered floral patterns. Leandro thinks of her work as creating abstract environments parallel to her own emotions and state of mind.