LAUREL HAUSLER’s “No Trace of the Woman” – Exhibition opens 2/13/15

About NO TRACE OF THE WOMAN:

LAUREL HAUSLER creates paintings and sculptures of felted wool inspired by Frances Glessner Lee’s 1940’s dollhouse rendering of “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death”, composite crime scene models recreated on a one-inch-to-one-foot scale. Inspired by Glessner Lee’s visionary and zealous passion for forensics in a time when women were unable to become detectives, Hausler selects needles and fiber as her medium to honor traditional notions of “women’s art” or “craft”, mirroring Glessner Lee’s own meticulous attention to detail, down to every last hand-crafted clue, of the “Nutshell Studies”.

About LAUREL HAUSLER:

A Washington, DC native, LAUREL HAUSLER’s love of literature, antiquity, unsolved mysteries and the obscure inspire the stories behind her work.  Working in a subtractive and additive process, she creates the surface of her felt sculpted paintings by layering strands of felted wool. Admired for resisting a self-conscious approach to process, Hausler reveals lines, veils and gestures on her surfaces that demonstrate her decision-making process through the work’s evolution to its finished state.

Red Shoes, 50″x50″, felted wool

Sunset, 36″x52″, felted wool embroidery thread

Lonelihearts, 40″x36″, wool felt, embroidery thread

Closet, 40″x40″, burlap and felted wool

Cheryl, 30″x 30″, wool, felt, and embroidery thread

1946, 20″x18″, felted wool