Description
Claire Watson is the 2023 Top Honors recipient of the 84th Artist Members Exhibition, selected by Virginia Lebermann, cofounder and board president of Ballroom Marfa. This exhibition marks Watson’s first major institutional solo presentation on the East End of Long Island, where she has maintained a home and studio in Water Mill for three decades.
Watson’s sculptures and mixed-media assemblages are composed from found materials. In her recent work, she deconstructs salvaged leather garments and reconfigures them into new formal compositions using traditional sewing and pattern-making techniques. These works highlight the tactile and structural qualities of leather, transforming utilitarian objects into forms with renewed expressive potential. The traces of wear embedded in the garments suggest histories of the body and labor, which Watson refashions into abstract meditations on human form and presence.
This exhibition is organized by Melanie Crader, museum director and curator of visual arts, with support from Philippa Content, museum manager and registrar and Claire Hunter, museum coordinator and curatorial associate.
