Textile Moments of Self-Empowerment

Gio Swaby makes an appearance with her distinctive practice: as a multidisciplinary artist, she relies primarily on textiles, through which she conveys the interactions of being black and female to the outside world – best realized in her embroidered portraits, each of which she begins with a photo shoot. Swaby captures her models in moments of self-recognition and self-empowerment; then interprets them as textile reproductions – hair, clothing and jewelry accentuated by the artist, with care on one side, freehand style on the other. By also revealing the reverse side, with all its knots and loose ends, Swaby equally embraces the vulnerability and imperfection of her work.

The choice of medium stems from Swaby's family background: she grew up in the Bahamas, where her mother worked as a seamstress. At the same time, working with textiles is involuntarily associated with femininity and domesticity. The Art Institute in Chicago is now dedicating the artist's first solo museum exhibition to this working technique, beginning April 8. In Gio Swaby: Fresh Up, the museum brings together seven of Swaby's series from 2017 to 2021, such as My Hands Are Clean and Pretty Pretty, and also 15 new works, including her largest work to date, a commissioned piece for the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, Bahamas. The Art Institute developed the title Fresh Up in collaboration with Swaby. It derives from a Bahamian phrase that serves as a compliment to good style or self-confidence. The exhibition is on view through July 3.