SEATTLE, WA.- The Seattle Art Museum is presenting Project 42: Jono Vaughan (April 21–August 5, 2018), the solo exhibition of the winner of the 2017 Betty Bowen Award. Jono Vaughan’s multidisciplinary work memorializes transgender individuals whose lives were cut short by violence; she creates handmade garments that are then used in collaborative public performances.
On view at SAM are three new works from Project 42, Vaughan’s ongoing series begun in 2012. Named for the short life expectancy of transgender individuals in the United States, the project calls attention to the persistent pattern of extreme violence against trans people. Each work in the series is a garment that commemorates an individual transgender person who was murdered. The three garments on view at SAM memorialize the life and death of Myra Ical, Deja Jones, and Lorena Escalera Xtravaganza.
Vaughan begins with a Google Earth image of a murder location and digitally manipulates it to create an abstract textile print. The style of the garments is inspired by the life and history of the individuals. Each garment is then worn by a collaborator in performance as a form of memorialization and celebration.
In SAM’s exhibition, two of the garments hang on the wall, which is covered with wallpaper of the same pattern as the dress. The third—a monumental and much larger, more sculptural garment—is displayed in the center of the gallery, with a 34-foot train lifting off from the dress and draping down from the ceiling. Vaughan, along with studio assistants and volunteers, have created numerous fabric flowers that will be available in the gallery for visitors to personally tie onto the train to complete the memorial to the individual. This is the first time that Vaughan has opened up this act of commemoration to the public.
Jono Vaughan holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions, including MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas Present: Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects at The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington and We the People at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Vaughan has received grants for a variety of visual art projects from The Arts Council of Hillsborough County, The National Performance Artist and Visual Artist Network, Art Matters Foundation, and the Pollination Project. She teaches Fine Art at Bellevue College and works in her studio in Seattle, WA.
