Emilka Wolniewicz, MFA (she/her) is a Polish-American artist, writer, and researcher. She is fascinated by theories of fashion and objects, chaos, consumerism, text, collected materials, translation, beauty and wit, and how these entities merge together. Guided by words (1), and working through hand and body, Emilka uses material from packaging, informative labels, and magazines, as well as surrealist automatism and photography. Her practice investigates politics of consumer culture, magazines, advertisements, and temporality. She plays with collaging in digital weavings, code, garment construction, stitching, and embroidery, with specific material considerations such as cotton, found objects, light, and heavy conceptual thought.

Taking the theory of objects, Emilka constructs pieces that correspond to utility, but retain artful auras, allowing them to hold passions of the subject. In response to the particular chaos of commodities and pop culture at large, her work disrupts the innate utility of textiles, while still preserving their history. It is ornamented with extravagant bizarreness, story, and wit through overwhelming scale, texture, and hue. It is these conceptual considerations, as well as study of text and objects that are substrates to her artistic work fostering reflection on the peculiar actions of contemporary popular culture.

1. CHAOS TRANSLATION DECONSTRUCTION RECONSTRUCTION REJUVENATION