Artwork Description
Angela Ellsworth – Pantaloncini: Group IV, The Ten Largest No. 6, Ahead (Hilma)
Dimensions: 26 x 26 x 13″
Year: 2020-2021
Medium: 40,180 pearl corsage pins, colored dress pins, fabric, steel
Angela Ellsworth is a multidisciplinary artist traversing disciplines of drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and performance. Her solo and collaborative work has taken in wide-ranging subjects such as illness, physical fitness, endurance, religious tradition, and social ritual. She is interested in art merging with everyday life where public and private experiences collide in unexpected spaces.
Seer Bonnets are an ongoing series of sculptural pioneer bonnets covered in thousands of steel, pearl-tipped corsage pins that create subtle patterns on the exteriors and sharp, rugged interiors. Standing in for the estimated thirty-five wives of Joseph Smith, the bonnets become the “tools of translation” which allow these resilient wives to see messages and translate them into visions. This is a nod to the tools Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon. Ellsworth re-imagine this community of women with their own visionary and revelatory powers, as they pioneer new personal histories.