Charles Cowles Gallery is pleased to announce our first exhibition of works by JIL WEINSTOCK. Casting her works in rubber, WEINSTOCK addresses ideas of identity and memory with her latest works using vintage dresses. Many of the dresses were inherited from her grandmother whose fashion sense and sewing talent were much admired by WEINSTOCK as a child. They hang on the wall much like vanity mirrors or portraits and the fabrics become sheer and sensuously folded when suspended in the rubber. The material's fleshy surface acknowledges the body while the strict geometric shape of the pieces shows WEINSTOCK's continuing exploration of formal composition with only the zippers implying the structure of the garment and the body which inhabited it.

 Jessica Hemmings writes, "The amber color of the rubber is similar to that of sepia-toned photographs – precious mementos of lives no longer with us" (Fiberarts January/February 2006). This analogy is particularly appropriate in reference to WEINSTOCK's group of cast-rubber ovals that have a familial relationship with each other. Connected like a veritable genealogical study of shape, scale and color, these new pieces, while diminutive individually, are monumental when viewed as a whole.