Belle-Pilar Fleming

Phebe and Vic

Lithography and Screen Print

Phebe and Vic

Lithography and Screen Print

Archive Spill

Screen Print

Statement

Through my work I aim to catalogue experiences of identity, investigating the emotional realities of sociocultural landscapes and the ways in which people navigate them. As an artist, my practice is largely led by research based in the social sciences. Utilizing personal narrative, ethnography, and data visualization, I aim to make pieces which are both intellectually engaging and conceptually accessible. I approach each body of work as a case study, focusing on the sociopolitical histories of particular demographics through investigations into archives, libraries, and other collections. Aesthetic cues and compositions are then drawn from the inherent qualities of the respective source materials.

My process is grounded in both textile-based techniques and printmaking, particularly lithography and screen printing. The result is a conversation between reproducible matrices and sewn substrates, with the aesthetic qualities of each informing the other. In addition to a love for print processes and the utilitarian labor inherent in the art form, I am interested in negotiations of memory through reproduction, and the many social spaces which prints occupy. I am conjointly drawn to textile-based practices traditionally associated with female labor including sewing, quilting, embroidery, and mending, and use these techniques, in addition to print, to explore lineage, intimacy, and affect. Much of my work includes figurative elements, and I am compelled by the ways in which body language, clothing, and gesture hold emotional space. Fragmented and collaged images speak to the complexity of identity, as well as the imperfect categorical systems present in archival spaces
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Biography

Belle-Pilar Fleming is an American printmaker and textile artist currently based in Colorado. She was raised in a small town outside of Dayton, Ohio, a city situated at the threshold of the Rust Belt, Appalachia, and the Midwest. She holds a BA in Psychology from Warren Wilson College, and an MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University. She has exhibited her work across the United States and recently completed a year-long residency at the University of North Dakota. She is currently working as an Academic Success Coordinator in the Department of Art and Art History at Colorado State University.
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