NEW YORK.- P·P·O·W & Kohn Gallery announced co-representation of the interdisciplinary artist Chiffon Thomas. This December, P·P·O·W will debut new work by Thomas in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Online Viewing Room and in March 2021, Thomas will hold their first solo exhibition with Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.

“We feel Chiffon is a huge addition to P·P·O·W,” says gallery co-founder Wendy Olsoff, “and feel their potential to create artwork in a variety of media, authentically based on deep personal experience and raw talent is something we rarely see. We are excited to support their work with Kohn Gallery.”

First introduced to embroidery at Chicago’s King College Prep High School, Thomas has since developed a multifaceted practice incorporating embroidery, collage, drawing, and sculpture to explore the self as split, fractured, and transforming. Identifying as a non-binary queer person of color, Thomas contends with the crafted body in their work, examining wider issues of gender, race and sexuality. Embracing the liminal space between figuration and abstraction, Thomas’ “impossible bodies” forcefully eschew easy classification in order to serve as vessels for personal memories and collective narratives. Reminiscent of the diverse, mixed media practices exhibited by David Hammons, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, and Faith Ringgold, Thomas’ own application of materiality is a unique language for translating both shared and personal experiences.

Raised in a fervent religious community on the South Side of Chicago, Thomas grapples with their upbringing by harnessing a resourceful materiality. Intertwining embroidery with found objects such leather, wooden columns, window screens, and crates, Thomas' tactile compositions shift in and out of focus, resulting in visceral collisions of abstraction and figuration. Drawing upon an archive of family snapshots and cultural references, Thomas constructs richly autobiographical scenes that invite the viewer into a dynamic landscape of emotional investigation. Suspended between the physical and psychological realms, Thomas’ figures embody the simultaneous vulnerability and power required to uphold communities, cultures and identities.

Chiffon Thomas (b. 1991) was born in Chicago, IL and holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Thomas has completed prominent residencies with the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME and the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL and the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH. Thomas' work was featured in the recently released publication Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists.