FRANCESCA CAPONE // A Mother’s Discourse

On view April 13–May 19, 2024
Opening reception Saturday, April 13 (3–5pm)

Nationale is honored to present a new suite of textile work by gallery artist Francesca Capone. A Mother’s Discourse opens April 13, 2024 and combines Capone’s trademark use of fabric, language, and research to expand on the complicated topic of motherhood. The weavings displayed in the front gallery and the bookshop favor soft gradients, hints of domestic patterns, and sharp truisms that together brave a poignant dialogue. A first-time mother observing a post Roe v. Wade reality, Capone became concerned by the rapidly devolving lack of social resources available to new families in the United States. A linguist at heart, her focus turned toward books in search of comfort. As she read, she found a kindred community in literature narrating deeply personal experiences of child-rearing.

“The U.S. is one of the only developed countries that does not offer any federal paid family or sick leave benefit to new parents. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows workers to take 12 weeks off without losing their jobs to recover from serious illness or to care for newborns or family members with serious health conditions. But—crucially—it does not guarantee pay, forcing many Americans to face an untenable choice between earning a living and taking the time they desperately need to care for their families.”
—Emma Specter, Vogue, October 28, 2021, Once Again, the U.S. Has Failed Families on Paid Leave 

This exhibition presents as an abstracted metaphor for the maternal in four sections: a range of colormap weavings; gridded composites of heirloom fabric; a cento poem; and an archive library, now spanning 35 books. Each framed textile piece reveals a quote embroidered on its surface and sourced from one of the longform written works Capone has collected over the past few years. Luminous, pulsing, strange (Cusk) and The picture is not all rosy (Suleiman) are two examples of earlier weavings. Here, the tonal gradients appearing with each pass of the shuttle could be interpreted as a soft parallel to the transitions Capone experienced as her child passed through early infancy. The inclusion of a penned phrase outside of its original context invites an immediate interaction from the viewer to decipher its unique intention.

As her son became more mobile, Capone too expanded more fully into her practice. She began by hand-weaving strips of maternal fabric scraps to form new canvases addressing her pressing concerns. These textiles were passed down from her multigenerational family of Sicilian American fashion industry workers. Pieces such as A moment of quiet (Clayton) and To love and protect (Emecheta) are smaller records of a similar intention, akin to promises whispered to a loved one. These embroidered lines span across the gallery walls in quiet reverence for the weight of the written word. Mantras such as “a visitation from angels” and “the future for you” read as gentle stitches in time that capture the varied nuances of early motherhood. Twined together they make up the complete poem A Mother’s Discourse: Cento, which hangs printed on translucent, silk chiffon in the Project Room. For viewers eager to engage the texts in full, the archive of books accompanies this collection, spines dusted in gradual hues of pink.

In its entirety, A Mother’s Discourse intimately enmeshes text and textile to give voice to an emotionally complex and shared experience. Capone has capably created a soft protest to the current landscape for mothers and new families, imbuing every stage with a warm familiarity for maker and viewer alike.

Francesca Capone is a visual artist, writer, and textile designer. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Literary Arts from Brown University (2015) and a BFA in Textiles from Rhode Island School of Design (2009). Her books Weaving Language (2015, 2018, and 2022), Woven Places (2018), Text means Tissue (2017), and Writing in Threads (2015) focus on textile poetics. Her work has been exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery in London, LUMA/Westbau in Switzerland, Textile Arts Center in New York City, NOON Projects in Los Angeles, 99¢ Plus Gallery in Brooklyn, and Nationale in Portland, OR. Capone has been an artist in residence at the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation, Andrea Zittel's A-Z West, and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. More of her published work can be found at Gauss PDF, Tunica Magazine, and in The New Concrete from Hayward Press. Her academic work includes lectures and workshops at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Leeds Beckett University, Reed College, University of Washington, and Alberta College of Art and Design, among others. This is Capone’s fifth solo exhibition at Nationale, where she has been represented since 2018. It is funded in part thanks to an Arts3C grant from Regional Arts & Culture Council.

PRESS & MORE
Recommended Pick / Do Not Miss, Lindsay Costello, EverOut Portland, April 2024
Cliff Notes: Oregon Picks, Christine Miller, Variable West, April 24, 2024

IMAGES

Gratitude to Claire Tomlinson for her assistance in the work; to Matthew McCalmont for the frames; and to Ryan Noon of NOON Projects for his early support of the work. The following authors and artists have granted permissions for the texts quoted in the work: Suzanne Buffam, J’Lyn Chapman, Lenka Clayton, Rachel Cusk, Carol Maso, Maggie Nelson, and Susan Suleiman. The following authors and artists have permissions pending for the texts quoted in the work: Tillie Olsen, Buchi Emecheta, Adrienne Rich, and Sylvia Plath.

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