Beauty is Resistance, subversive textile art at browngrotta arts

Beauty is Resistance: art as antidote at browngrotta arts in Connecticut will feature 30 international artists, spanning generation and geographies

Aby Mackie reconstructs reclaimed historic textiles as quiet resistance to honor overlooked histories.
Randy Walker’s Collider reimagines fiber through an architectural framework, demanding that viewers look more closely. Photo by Tom Grotta

For the 30 international artists featured in the upcoming Beauty is Resistance: art as antidote exhibition at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut, beauty has purpose. Set against a backdrop of political division and ecological breakdown, this week-long October exhibition proves that beauty is not just aesthetic indulgence but can be used as a tool for protest, remembrance, and imagination.

‘The multiplicity of materials and techniques expressed in this exhibition engages viewers,’ says Tom Grotta, co-curator, ‘but they are truly captivated when they identify the works’ deeper significance—to the artists and in many cases, to themselves.’

For the exhibition that expresses many overriding topics, the work is divided between four thematic sub-sections: Threads of Memory, Reading Between the Lines, Radical Ornament, and Ritual and Reverence.

Lia Cook creates large-scale woven portraits of children based on video stills. Surprisingly intimate despite their size, they evoke recognition, nostalgia, and even grief. Photo by Tom Grotta

Threads of Memory

On the subject of remembrance, the works of Norma Minkowitz and Lia Cook express memory as something tangible. Minkowitz’s Frozen in Time series wraps used personal items—such as combs, brushes, a sealed diary—in dark threads. These ghostly forms refer to forgotten lives and lost stories. Lia Cook‘s large-scale woven portraits of children based on photo stills evoke recognition, nostalgia, and grief.

Adela Aker’s Interruption II was inspired by patterns on a bark cloth painted by the Mbuti tribe which she translated into noncontiguous lines painted on woven strips enhanced with horsehair. Photo by Tom Grotta

Reading Between the Lines

With some of the featured artists’ work, reading between the lines is necessary to discover themes of protest, politics, and ecological consciousness, which may be directly or subtly expressed.  ‘My practice becomes a form of quiet resistance,’ Aby Mackie says, ‘honouring forgotten stories and reasserting the enduring significance of craft.’ The Spanish artist reconstructs reclaimed historic textiles to honour overlooked histories. El Salvador is an assemblage from Ed Rossbach‘s 1980s series, which was created as a comment on US covert operations in Central America.

Gyöngy Laky’s Graceful Exit uses brightly colored plastic waste provided by Johnson Wax to rethink sustainability. James Bassler comments on the glorification of entitlement and profit, historic and contemporary, in Donald and his Habsburg Empire, made with thread yarn made from duck feathers – a traditional Mexican technique. Photo by Tom Grotta

Radical Ornament

Some of the artists in Beauty is Resistance are demonstrating that radical ornamentation, surface, and structure are valid and vital modes of messaging. Randy Walker’s Collider uses threads to create contrasts of solidity and fragility, visibility and invisibility while Gyöngy Laky’s Graceful Exit uses brightly coloured plastic waste—byproducts of industrial cap-making.

Irina Kolesnikova pays homage to painter René Magritte. Her woven human figures devoid of individuality express the notion of that people lose individuality and become a dark mass in the eyes of autocratic rulers. Photo by Tom Grotta

Ritual and Reverence

In some artworks, cultural traditions are referenced in order to make statements about politics and history. Using duck feathers spun via traditional Mexican techniques, James Bassler‘s Donald and his Habsburg Empire draws parallels between imperialism and modern elitism.  In her piece Konstruction I, Jin-Sook So modernises the Korean tradition of bojagi through layered silver-plated steel mesh.

Misako Nakahira of Japan uses stripes, deliberately distorted and overlapping, as a way of viewing society from a broader perspective and interpreting current turbulent times. Photo by Tom Grotta

A colour exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase. #61: Beauty is Resistance: art as antidote, features an essay by Elizabeth Essner, Windgate Foundation Associate Curator of Craft at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Beauty is Resistance: art as antidote, is on view at browngrotta arts from 11-19 October 2025.

In Vogue by Nnenna Okore, Nigerian practices and cultural objects materials undergo a series of transformative processes that change their functionality and create new meaning.  In El Salvador an assemblage from 1984, Ed Rossbach incorporates camouflage fabric and natural materials, one of a series of works that critiqued U.S. covert operations in Central America. Photo by Tom Grotta.

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