Rose Nestler

Rose Nestler is an interdisciplinary artist making sculptural and video based work. She received her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2017 where she was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited at a variety of galleries and institutions including, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Thierry Goldberg, BRIC, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Ortega Y Gasset, Underdonk, Smack Mellon, University of Illinois/Springfield, Crush Curatorial, SPACE in Portland, ME, CUCHIFRITOS Gallery and Project Space, and PUBLIC Gallery in London. She has been an artist in residence at Lighthouse Works, Edward F. Albee Foundation, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Wassaic Project and Byrdcliffe Artists Colony. This spring she will be an artist in residence at Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, LA. Her work has been featured and reviewed in Vulture, Maake Magazine, Art Space and Art of Choice.

Statement
My fabric sculptures often take the form of clothing and accessories, highlighting the ways that gendered stereotypes play out on the body. Through reinterpreting loaded garments and objects into oversized soft sculptures and wall hangings that straddle humor, shame and pride, I can instill an omnipotent feminine power into the iconic items I recreate. Through an adaptation of historic subject matter with contemporary materials I reimagine iconic patriarchal institutions (sports or business worlds) as feminine spaces, chipping away at the entanglement of gender and history. Video allows me to activate my sculptures. Through performance I document a physical relationship with the work that I make; each video illustrates dual feelings of sexuality and asexuality. Because of this duality I aim to create forms and characters that contain a fluidity or neutrality of gender, probing both feelings of sensuality and discomfort.

Interview with Rose Nestler

Questions by Emily Burns

Hi Rose! Can you tell us a bit about what led you to pursue a career as an artist? Do you have any early memories that might allude to your eventual path?
Since I can remember I’ve felt most comfortable in spaces where I was free to express myself creatively - whether that was through poetry, dance, theater, music, fashion or visual art - I’ve dabbled in all of it! As an adolescent I was really pulled more toward the performing arts, I had always liked drawing, painting and ceramics but lacked the ability and confidence to draw a horse correctly, and due to this rubric, I assumed that I wasn’t cut out for being an artist with a capital A. Towards the end of high school I took a painting class and it was my painting teacher who whispered in my ear one day that I might in fact be an artist! This was probably a moment that spurred my interest in pursuing art more seriously. I went into college thinking that I was going to be an international relations major, however first semester I accidentally signed up for an art film class and basically the rest is history, that’s all I wanted to do for the rest of time, study visual culture and communicate through this research.

Much of your work directly references the body, though through the reference of clothing of many kinds‚ ranging from athletic wear, suits, sports bras, shirts, shoes, and more. Can you tell us how you began to work with clothing as a reference point?
I began my deep dive into highlighting specific items of clothing in 2017. I had begun collecting women’s corrective garments because I was fascinated by their duality in form and function. I had some control top tights and I chopped off the legs so that I could just focus on the control top itself; the top of a pair of pantyhose intended to conceal, contain and smooth a woman's pelvic area. These deconstructed garments led to a series of colorful sculptures which are scaled up versions of the control top. Scaling up allowed me to contrast the purpose of the garment, these sculptures are "out of control" and take up space, they're awkwardly and unabashedly powerful. The fabric that they’re made of speaks to women's wear, power suits and lingerie. Each control top has a leather crotch, adding an erotic or kinky appeal. This initial body of work led to my Power Suit series which I’m still working on.

Many of the materials you use are also specific to clothing, such as particular types of neoprene mesh, vinyl, spandex, etc. Can you tell us more about your choice of materials?
Yes, I change the type of textile/fabric that I’m working on depending on the content of the work. If I’m contextualizing business style power suits, I often use fabric typically designated for suit tailoring including, muted tones, pinstripes, seersuckers or linen. If I’m making work about athletic culture I’m using tech fabrics including, neoprene, spandex and nylon. Then there are also moments in my work when I cross over, such as an elizabethan ruff made out of neoprene sports mesh or a medieval suit of armor made out of sparkly polyester.

Where do you source materials from? Do you often haunt particular fabric stores in the garment district?Mostly I’m sourcing from the garment district in NY. Sometimes online, but I like to see and handle the materials in person. I’ve got to know the garment district quite well, I go to different stores for different types of fabric, trim or leather. It’s fun, like going to a bunch of candy stores (really expensive candy stores!)

How did sewing initially become part of your practice? Did a parent have an interest in sewing that was passed along to you? Do you ever make functional work as well, such as clothing for yourself?
I just gravitated toward sewing and fabric and right now it feels like the best material to express what it is I want to explore. For my college graduation present I was gifted a sewing machine. It lay dormant for years but in grad school I picked it back up, primarily because the sculpture facilities were lacking and here was a machine that I had full control over, I treated my poor sewing machine like a table saw! No one in my family sews or taught me, I learned on my own. When I first began, it was pretty rough hewn, slowly I’ve built up some more impressive sewing and patterning chops. I do make costumes for a lot of my videos and want to make functional clothing too, but alas, there’s not enough time in the day to do it all. One day!

You make sculptures that are exhibited as objects, but your work also appears in your video work. Have you always worked in both mediums, or did one direction influence the other?
I began working with video about 3 years ago while in grad school. It opened up so much for me. From the beginning the objects or sculptures that I was making were appearing as characters or props in the videos. This symbiotic relationship was exciting to me because I always wanted my sculptures to be activated in some way - to have a second life outside of standing there in the gallery or studio - video answered this dilemma in my practice.

You have described your sculptures as possessing an “alert softness”—which is a fantastic and apt way to describe their physical and conceptual qualities. Is that kind of dichotomy related to the idea of the portrayal of power in your work? For instance, many of your works portray stereotypically masculine clothing such as suits, but with the addition of alert, caricature-esque cone-like breasts, or conversely languid, empty bra-like forms.
I think the dichotomy of softness and power in the work that I make is connected to an exterior and interior self. As an other, my exterior self strives to appear forceful, competent, and strong. One way to achieve this facade is through clothing, symbolically acting as armor, sometimes in my work as weaponized, conical breasts. However, there is simultaneously my interior self who finds exhaustion and deflation in these public performance based ways of existing. This interior can also be illustrated in clothing that has been taken off or hung up for the night per se.

Can you tell us more about the inclusion of iconic patriarchal institutions like sports and business in your work, and combining this ancient subject matter with contemporary clothing styles?
My work reinterprets garments and tools that women have utilized to protect and adapt themselves while striving to succeed and compete within a patriarchal, capitalist society. Recently I have been most engaged with the tension between my own rejection of and simultaneous attraction to the material and form that these gendered garments and objects have assumed throughout history. Because of my interest in the idea of success as defined by capitalism I often research historically patriarchal spaces such as the sports or business world that hold a certain understanding of success as the apogee of human achievement. In a lot of my work I aim to reimagine these spaces at distinctly feminine in the hopes of puncturing the gendered understanding of the ascension to a flawed victory .

What themes are you most interested incorporating into your work right now?
At the moment I’m working on two different bodies of work. The first is for a solo show centering around the objects, materials and experiences tied up with our societies’ obsession with youth and immortality. Within this obsession I am most interested in the ways this plays out on the female face and how it connects to one’s livelihood. What adjustments are made to protect, succeed and ultimately compete in a capitalist and patriarchal society?
The second group of work will be for a three person show with two painters. I will be continuing my Power Suit series, though for these new works I will be reinterpreting garments worn by iconic figures in Modernist paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Leger, etc. Hopefully through clothing based, sculptural pieces I will give these art historical subjects, muses and models their own agency outside of the paintings.

Can you tell us more about the particular work, Leggings of a Satyr, made in 2019? Was this a first departure from more human forms?
Yes, I suppose this piece was my first departure from the human form although the Satyr is the mythical half goat, half man creature, so there is still a connection to the human experience. I made this piece in dialogue with Elizabeth Glaessner’s work, the painter I was showing with for a two person show in London. Glaessner incorporates a type of dystopic, feminist mythology in a lot of her work and there are a lot of cloven hoof characters appearing in her paintings. I was interested in responding to the Satyr, a lustful, drunken, woodland god in Greek mythology, known as a sexual deviant, facing no consequences for lewd or aggressive behavior. With the mildly psychedelic spandex leggings I created I wanted to reframe the archetype of the Satyr as a jester, therefore taking away some of his aggression and power. The wood mount that the piece hangs from could be seen as hole for his tail - they are his pants afterall - or possibly an emasculating cork, I enjoy the ambiguity.

How long have you been making work in the way that you are making now? How has it changed and what has stayed constant since undergrad, or grad school?
I’ve been working with fabric as a primary sculptural material since 2016/2017. I began making videos around the same time while in grad school. Before grad school I was working with a wider range of materials and techniques including upholstery, paper mache, and cast multiples. I was still painting and drawing through 2013. I’m a slow starter! I honestly feel like I developed what some call my “voice” while in grad school because that was the first time in my adult life I allowed myself the time and space to focus almost solely on my work.

Your work often incorporates an element of humor. What is the role of humor in your work? Do you find that humor makes your work more accessible to viewers?
I consider myself to be a funny person with a dark sense of humor and a goofy personality. That said, I don’t set out with the intention of making my work through a humorous lens, that part comes through unintentionally but I’m glad that it’s there. Humor makes the most unsettling and unnerving subjects digestible, in turn making my work accessible. I’m not telling inside jokes, I hope the funny in my work speaks to issues that many people can relate to, there is catharsis to laughing through pain.

Over the past few years you have attended a number of residencies. How have these impacted your work and practice?
I think the greatest takeaway from residencies, aside from the invaluable, concentrated time that you get to develop your work and the beautiful places you get to travel to, are the other artists you meet and connect with. Some of my dearest and best artist friends are people I met while at residencies.

Can you tell us about your studio? What do you need to be productive there?
Right now I have a studio in the Brooklyn Army Terminal that is part of the Chashama Studio Program. In my studio you’ll find, lots and lots of fabric scraps from previous projects, mannequins for costumes, hardware, big tables for patterning, my sewing machine, rolled up paper patterns, some of my current and past artworks, moodboards for upcoming projects and my broken in studio sneakers. I just need a quiet space that’s near other incredible artists for the occasional impromptu studio visit.

What's up next for you?
I’ll be an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center in May and June! This fall I will have a solo show in San Francisco and be part of a three person show in Montreal.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us!