Soft City

The book features a series of of mixed media artworks, entitled Soft City, created by Marilyn Henrion, a native New Yorker, in 2010. These works represent the artist's personal take on the city, revealing its soft side, with unexpected visual treats lurking around every corner. Once Gotham's hard unyielding surfaces are peeled back, the beautiful and complex patina of each facade is illuminated. In his critical essay included in the book, art critic Ed McCormack writes, "This major American artist is one of precious few who have taken the textile medium far beyond its brief popularity during the feminist era and continued to broaden its possibilities and elevate it to the highest level of contemporary mainstream aesthetics." The mixed media constructions represent a fusion of past and present. Ancient needlework techniques are combined with digitally manipulated photography and inkjet printing to create works of art that reflect contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The presence of the hand stitching both animates the surfaces of the works and, at the same time, softens and humanizes the urban geometry by the irregular qualities of texture inherent in the materials and construction. The "Soft City" series will be introduced to the public in a solo exhibition by Marilyn Henrion at Noho Gallery in New York City in the Fall of 2010.