Lisa Kokin | Art made from thread

Welcome

This website strives to be accurate and complete. It represents a large part of the work I have completed since 1990. Although it is rather vast in scope, there are many pieces in each body of work that are not included. On occasion I accept commissions for private and public collections. Please send me a note if you are interested in a commission.

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Sewing & Alterations

Asemic

The word “asemic” means “having no specific semantic content.” The Asemic series is the logical outgrowth of my previous series, Facsimile, in which zipper fragments served as stand-ins for text. I have expanded my “writing” to now include a variety of objects and materials on substrates as varied as linen, canvas and industrial felt.

In this series I invent “words” and “languages” with materials that I naturally gravitate to: small domestic metal items, rusty metal fragments found on the street, safety pins, broken needles from the Facsimile project, and thread which I use in unruly bunches to accentuate its gestural quality. In making this work I realize how much I like using objects in ways they weren’t intended to be used, purely for the love of shape, line, juxtaposition and resonance.

Much of my previous work is rooted in specific content. This series has decided to be open to interpretation. Although I want to make work that comments on the world around me, I seem to be at a loss for words.

Narrative

Narrative, detail

Vernacular

Vernacular, detail

Synopsis

Synopsis, detail

Rebus #1

Rebus #1, detail

Rebus #2

Rebus #2, detail

Parenthetical

Parenthetical, detail

Notation

Notation, detail