"Gio Swaby: Fresh Up" at St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts -- Self-Portraits

"My Hands Are Clean 4" (2017)

A couple of months back my friend Carole and I were taking in a glorious addition to the St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts' collection -- Kehinde Wiley's "Leviathan Zodiac (World Stage: Israel)." As I'm wont to do, I started chatting with a woman with two young children in tow about the work. It turned out she's a docent at the Museum. And while she loves the Wiley, she was even more enthusiastic about the upcoming Gio Swaby exhibit. "It is something really special," she said. Always trust a docent. 

Fiber is finally being recognized as a mainstream artistic medium after centuries of being relegated to the realm of domestic work. And so it's not unusual to come across an exhibit featuring the work of a fiber artist. I'm always amazed by the innumerable creative ways fiber can be employed. Admittedly, this isn't the highest bar given that I failed at my attempt to get a Girl Scout sewing badge. But Gio Swaby's thread and applique paintings seem to have taken the art world by surprise as well with her decision to let the viewer in on the underside of her artistic process -- literally. 

"My Hands Are Clean 3" (2017)

Swaby often chooses to display the backs of the canvases on which her thread paintings have been created. In "My Hands Are Clean 4," a couple of stray threads have escaped from the confines of the self-portrait. It's almost as if a breeze suddenly swept across Swaby's face, releasing a few strands of hair. 

In "My Hands are Clean 3," there are even more loose threads. The wall card acknowledges that most artists wouldn't show the underside of their work, opting instead to give viewers the neatly packaged version. The explanation continues. "They [the realities of the stitching process] function much like a map of the artist's process, showing, for instance, where she lifted the needle after finishing a stitch and moving on to a new section. Swaby embraces these imperfections, and likens them to the vulnerable parts of one's identity." Life, after all, is messy. And if you happen to know your way around a sewing machine -- as my companions did -- you can understand the significance of her choices even more deeply. 

"Another Side to Me Second Chapter 1" (2021

The exhibit -- Swaby's first solo museum show -- features seven separate series. The works in her "My Hands Are Clean" series are all self-portraits of the 29 year old artist. The title of the series was initially a bit baffling. The wall card explained its genesis and reads: 

"This series addresses the micro aggression of touching the hair of Black women. Swaby started these works while living in Vancouver... [and] was struck by the city's lack of diversity -- only one percent of the population was Black, which was a stark contrast to Nassau, Bahamas, from where she had recently moved. Feeling like she was under constant observation, Swaby reflected on how she was being perceived and found that many unsolicited interactions with strangers focused on her hair." 

Swaby's "Another Side to Me" series includes both self-portraits and portraits of her friends and family. The wall card -- which Swaby wrote -- explains her intention behind this series. It reads, in part: "This work recognizes multilayered ways of being and resists a singular and simplified perception of Blackness and womanhood." With the addition of different fabrics and colored thread to her thread paintings, the fact that we are all multi-dimensional is reinforced. 

Next up are some of Swaby's portraits of friends and family. But if you want more Swaby right now, click here for a conversation between the artist and Katherine Pill, the MFA's Curator of Contemporary Art. It's a great interview and took place in one of the galleries, so it gives you a sense of the scale of her work. Enjoy!