Autumn T. Thomas

“My studio practice reflects my approach to life: to cultivate meaning with a combination of structure and fluidity, and to glean from each process all the leftover bits that get misunderstood and tossed aside. My studio process consists of bending solid structures into curved forms and reflects the myriad ways in which I navigate life as a member of multiple marginalized groups. I sit with a straight piece of wood, sometimes for several hours at a time, measuring and placing strategic cuts. Each cut is representative of having been ‘cut-down’ by – or negatively affected by bias. Racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism and overarching stereotype of the angry Black woman. Each of these calculated, repetitive cuts allows the wood to bend and thus represents the many forms in which the constant bias I face does not break me, but instead teaches me to maneuver life with more fluidity and grace.

My work is about the shifting of structure. Structure can be literal, like something made of wood that is sound and stable, like a house. But structure can also be figurative and theoretical, like the intersectionality of racism and sexism. It is within those structures that the majority of our ideals – and the focus of my work – are embedded. They are institutions in which we live and reference the progress of our lives – even as we try to remove ourselves from them, they remain our frames of reference, for better or for worse.”