Jacqueline Surdell is no stranger to the industriousness of textile weaving. A fine artist working in iterations of landscape art through the intricate and laborious weaving of ropes and fibers, Surdell reimagines the space between painting and sculpture with an intuitive eye for the translation of mediums. “I approach my studio practice with the meticulous precision of craft and unbridled spontaneity of contemporary painting. I turn the woven canvas into an opportunity for undulation and growth,” she says. Figures take shape, fibes expand and collapse, and a story of labor, history, strength, and the binary of masculine and feminine comes to life in each of her pieces. All approached with refined artisanship and intention in honoring inherited stories and traditions, Surdell weaves a new future where identities, craft, and art are delineated and our innate expression becomes our most powerful tool.
Featured in our latest editorial wearing Isa Boulder, the Indonesian-based label using traditional craftsmanship and ethical production to deliver luxury intimates that speak to off-kilter female sensuality and identity, Surdell provides a poetic stream of consciousness on art, heritage, femininity, astrology, and beyond.
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On artisanship:
A practiced, dedicated, endured skill. It’s not born, but instead is forged and rendered from rawness. It’s in the air and it’s all around.
On femininity:
It’s a sea; ebbing and flowing; powerful in how unbound, uncontrollable, and undiscovered it is.
On rituals:
Coffee, hot showers, curiosity, and attempting perfection with the knowledge of inevitable fluctuation and failure.
On art:
Art is the mirror to the self and turns the self into a mirror to the world.
On identity:
It’s forever complicated.
On heritage:
When I seek solace and strength, I lean in and draw from the power of the people who raised me, both related and chosen.
On intersections:
The only honest way to live.
On astrology:
Aquarius sun, Pisces moon, and Pisces rising.
On originality:
It’s bullshit - nothing is new.
On womanhood:
It’s amazonian and herculean; it drips in strength.
On the ego:
It’s a monster.