Clothespin Freaks Portrait Gallery

My work explores how mythology serves as a coping mechanism in angst-ridden times and how diverse cultures coexist symbiotically. Inspired by the National Portrait Gallery's focus on heritage and its array of human personalities, I think of the "Clothespin Freaks Portrait Gallery" as an ongoing conversation about our future, our mortality, and our fears and hopes.

Embroidered onto the fabric surfaces of these stuffed oval pictures are the mythological personalities of an imaginary future. These characters, Clothespin Freaks, made of clear plastic clothespins, doll body parts and sewn pieces, are portrayed next to quasi-botanical forms that are in fact human organs. The embroidered names describe the Clothespin Freak's relationship to each depicted human fragment. The Clothespin Freaks control this environment, a place where the disruptive presence of mankind is neutralized through the body's fragmentation-a destructive process but, ultimately, one that may bring harmony to nature.

Catya Plate
Brooklyn, 2008