NYAB Event - Sara Singh and Arlene Guerra "Head Games Dress Candy"

Sara Singh and Arlene Guerra "Head Games Dress Candy"

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Fashion illustrator Sara Singh and jewelry designer and creator of P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) Arlene Guerra are ushering in New York Fashion Week this September with a joint exhibit of sculpture and jewelry that plays with concepts of innocence and character.

With silhouettes of male and female busts carved from plywood, Singh comments on the vanity and secrecy of the surfaces we present to each other. Complementing Singh's organic sculptures is Guerra's new collection of exaggerated, candy-colored jewelry, which blurs the line between the dress-up games of children and the adult dress-up game called fashion.

Sara Singh, whose watercolor illustrations of cool, beautiful women appear in Vogue and Elle and in connection with brands such as Keds, MAC Cosmetics, and Mikimoto, has done something completely different for Head Games Dress Candy: she has created a series of silhouettes of male and female heads hand cut from plywood. Her drawings translate remarkably well into wood. “I had originally meant to produce them in Plexiglas,” Singh says, “but when I began sawing prototypes out of plywood, I found that the wood grain gave the flat surfaces life and an almost human quality. ” As she sawed and sanded each nose, she says she felt a bit like Geppetto carving and blowing life into Pinocchio. The finely grained wood silhouettes, with their beautiful surface and natural opacity, are a comment on how we present ourselves: how identity can be like a game of hide and seek in which we hold back as much as we reveal. Fragments of sentences complement the silent busts. “Right now the heads line the walls of my studio, Singh says, adding, “When I come in in the morning there’s sometimes the strange feeling they’ve been talking amongst themselves all night.”

Arlene Guerra, creator of P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) is showing her new collection of deliciously candy-colored jewelry. Guerra says, “Life is one big dress up session. I love the juxtaposition of an adult wearing childlike accessories - pieces that make you feel like you’re playing dress up in your mom’s closet again.” In order to communicate this play on innocence with the characters of Singh’s sculptures, Guerra has translated this feeling into pieces that have a childlike appearance, but with a very adult angle. She has created exaggerated neckpieces, earrings, and rings done in plastic/resin and has incorporated mediums like glitter and Swarovski crystals. These materials and colors are intended to evoke the emotions once felt as a child: the excitement of candy, playtime, and the freedom to escape into a character.

Media

• Sculpture
• Other

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