Leslie Schomp

Leslie Schomp is a textile artist working in sculpture, embroidery, and lacemaking. For her installation at the Worcester Art Museum as part of the Central Massachusetts Artist Initiative (CMAI), Schomp will present a selection of lacework and hair “drawings” that share a focus on portraiture, identity, and mortality.

Schomp’s drawings are rooted in a tradition of using hair as a material—in particular, Victorian-era hair tokens and wreaths, which were symbols of affection and remembrance respectively. Using her own hair as thread, Schomp crafts portrait miniatures and scenes of the natural world. Set in antique-style frames that nod to their historic inspiration, these intimate drawings are grouped together to suggest emotions and stories. Schomp notes that, because hair can be seen as “both sensual and disgusting, [it] becomes a medium of tension, one that also reveals that a drawing can be both an illusion and an object. … a fibrous line, [it] must be both economical and at the same time layered in density to create the illusion of value at this smaller scale.”

A large-scale lace work featuring a design based on a family member’s pre-surgery x-ray further connects the themes of humanity found in the drawings. Schomp has recently been researching the history of lacemaking and applying this knowledge to her own practice. In works such as this, Schomp upends the delicate and decorative connotations of the material by depicting imagery relating to bodily fragility.

Schomp is Assistant Professor in the Visual Arts department at The College of the Holy Cross. She received her MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and her BFA from Florida State University. Recent and upcoming research fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester) and the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (Delaware).