Cal Lutheran exhibit focuses on clothing

(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Aug. 16, 2016) An exhibit highlighting artists who incorporate cloth and clothing into their works will open Aug. 26 in the William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art at California Lutheran University.

“Material Culture” runs through Oct. 29 on the Thousand Oaks campus. The opening reception will be held at 6 p.m. Sept. 3. 

The group show highlights artists who work with cloth and who provide commentary on clothing in their work, with particular interest in issues that relate to women and minorities. 

Cloth and clothing play an important role in how we interpret the world. Clothes historically have been seen to identify us by gender, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status and even sexual preference. In some cases, the wearing of particular garments has been made compulsory or illegal. 

The featured artists are Katherine Cambareri, Mandy Cano Villalobos, Teresita de la Torre, Lalla Essaydi, Kyla Hansen, Laura Kina, Ofelia Marquez, Liz Nurenberg, Melanie Pullen and Brankica Zilović Chauvain.

Cano Villalobos, a Michigan resident who has received many grants from foundations, will display used white T-shirts onto which she has sewn names as a way to address mass killings of women in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico.

Every day last year, de la Torre wore a shirt the graduate student at California State University at Fullerton found on the U.S.-Mexico border to spread awareness of immigration and highlight her ideas about vanity and decay. 

Essaydi, who was raised in Morocco but now lives in New York, combines Islamic calligraphy and photographs of the female body, addressing the complex reality of Arab female identity from the perspective of personal experience.

Pullen is a Los Angeles photographer whose most noted work, “High Fashion Crime Scenes,” consists of more than 100 photographs based on police department files.

Serbian-born Zilović Chauvain, who teaches fashion design at the Parsons Paris | The New School, works with textile materials to create needlepoint-style pieces that explore loss of life, memory, health and vitality.

Admission is free. The gallery, located in William Rolland Stadium, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. For more information, contact curator Rachel T. Schmid at 805-493-3697 or rollandgallery@callutheran.edu or visit CalLutheran.edu/rolland.