Karen LaMonte: Floating World
August 11–September 24, 2017 | Pleasant T. Rowland Galleries
Throughout her career LaMonte has used clothing as a metaphor and as a way to explore the
human body without depicting the human body. In 2007 LaMonte spent seven months in Kyoto on a
fellowship through the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. Studying all aspects of kimono
production—from weaving to construction, function, rituals, and meaning—the artist then spent six
years researching and working in the studio to complete her Floating World project.
A direct result of the time in Japan was her desire to make the sculptures in ceramic. To work
life-sized and include details of fabric texture, stitching, and complex undercuts, completely new
technologies were required. LaMonte achieved this during two extended research and development
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residencies at the European Ceramics Work Center in Den Bosch, Netherlands. The cast-glass
sculptures are fabricated at foundries in the Czech Republic and take one year to complete—two
months of which is simply annealing in the kiln. The bronze and rusted iron sculptures are cast in Italy.
For her previous work depicting Western clothing, LaMonte worked with live models. For the kimono
pieces she built a mannequin based on biometric data. She selected the measurements for the fiftieth
percentile of 40-year-old Japanese women in the year 2000. LaMonte says the mannequin is the
exact average Japanese female; the exact everywoman or no-woman.
Karen LaMonte (American, active in Czech Republic,
b. 1967), Young Bijin, 2013, ceramic, 41 x 17 x 17 in.,
courtesy of the artist and Austin Art Projects