The Fabric of Life

Artist Nicole A. Vanasse invites viewers into her magical world of visual creations, beautifully using fabric, pattern and form to create compelling images, each of which tells its own story. Layering dyed and printed textiles, she builds each composition piece by piece, allowing pattern and color to carry emotional weight. While from afar they may appear as paintings, the works are carefully constructed from fabrics which have their own tactile qualities. “I’ve sewn and embroidered all my life,” says Vanasse, “But what makes this fresh is the surprise element of the fabric, making choices about how it can be put together for effect.” 

Her inspiration began when she started making textile art to memorialize her father in 1993, creating a portrait using fabrics from his clothing like the dashikis he bought during his time in Ghana. It was a residency at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston which had a major transformative effect on her art, and Charleston continues to be a warm and welcoming home to support the arts. Her career has grown to include a commission from the U.S. Library of Congress and a show at the Cannon Rotunda at the U.S. Capitol. Vanasse also received a grant from the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is preparing for a solo exhibition at The Gibbes for January 2027.

The process is intuitive for Vanasse who uses scenes from real life as her inspiration. “I usually pick five to six pieces of fabric. Often each composition has been torn apart half way through, but I’ve come to expect that. 

There is so much animation in her human forms even without detailed expressions, “It’s never been about the faces,” she explains, “I find it’s more of an abstraction and about the body language. Part of the fun is seeing how the audience interprets the scene.” In “Metamorphosis” a woman reaches out to hold her friend’s hand, yet some viewers saw it as a letter and were curious what was in it. “I love when people see something that I didn’t intend and yet it fits the story. Things I’m not aware of emerge.” Her titles are also evocative, from “I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,” to “The Opportunist,” to “Woo woo news.”

The process is intensive and each composition can take months. “They are truly a part of me,” she explains, adding with a laugh, “There’s nothing I do quickly unless it’s making pasta.” 

Vanasse has expanded her storytelling across a series of panels for “Goldi,” a story of home, curiosity and belonging, recently exhibited at the Women’s Art Center of the Hamptons. She visually rewrites the story of Goldilocks as a beloved cat, where the three bears are actually people. It was inspired from a family photo of her and her parents and each cotton batik panel embodies the small comforts of home, charming reminders of the small yet precious details of everyday life.

East Hampton has played a major role in Vanasse’s life where she spent childhood summers with her uncle, Ted Dragon, a dancer, who was the companion of collector and artist Alfonso Ossorio at the famed 57-acre estate on Georgica Pond, the Creeks. “My Uncle Ted was an incredible person and coming to the Creeks as a child was just magic. There were always artists coming and going, and it was an incredible showcase of art. My parents were also avid collectors and influenced by Ted and Alfonso. When I had a spare moment my dad would say to me, sit down and sketch.” Perhaps now in her own artistic embodiment it is, sit down and stitch, and deciding, like Goldi, what is “just right.”

Nicole A. Vanasse