Stitches in Time: 'À La Mode' at Mark Arts

The 84 works stitched together in “À La Mode: The Language of Fashion in Art” at Mark Arts are striking in their scope of coverage. Curated by artist Shana Levenson, the exhibition explores the signifying power of fashion — how what we wear tells stories about who we are and who we were.

It’s no coincidence that the name of the exhibition points to another cultural exploration of how signs and symbols take on meaning: the semiotician Roland Barthes’ “The Language of Fashion,” his book of collected essays on the subject. In “À La Mode,” Levenson has focused her juried attention on examining the different ways in which a diverse set of artists have put fashion forward in their work and how they as individual artists interpret fashion’s generative, as well as repressive, importance. 

With represented artists hailing from across the United States and working in nearly every medium imaginable, “À La Mode” covers subjects ranging from first century C.E. sandals and robes in Ernest Wood’s “On the Road” to contemporary sunglasses and a high-collared coat in Brandon Raabe’s “Sunglasses and Wool.” Wood, from Wichita, and Raabe, from Hurricane, Utah, are two of the more than 40 artists who answered the call for submissions in “painting, drawing, sculpture, jewelry-making and more” issued by Mark Arts last fall.

Juan Gonzalez of Miami, Florida, working in hand-cut and painted paper, garnered first-place honors and a $1,500 award with his exquisitely intricate “Her Gown III,” the perfect image of an elegant, softly flowing white dress in chiffon or maybe satin. Yet the contrasting stiffness of the artist’s choice of medium, paper, adds an unexpected tension and texture to this stunningly detailed artwork. Interestingly, Gonzalez’s winning work reflects in a different medium the detail in some of Levenson’s own hyperrealistic paintings, including her oil on panel painting titled “Woven,” depicting an intricate lace garment covering a figure’s back and shoulder. Levenson, who’s based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, often emphasizes delicate and feminine details in her subjects: lace, body shapes, and jewelry, for example.

Second place with its $700 prize went to Robin Williamson of Sugar Land, Texas, for her “Satin and Fur” oil on linen. The painting depicts a pensive young woman dressed in shimmering blue satin and draped in white fur. Holding a bouquet of white hydrangeas, she’s seated on a brown, perhaps leather sofa — it’s an indoor scene. The background, though, is of a moody, cloud-filled sky that repeats the silvery blues and whites of the woman’s fashionable attire. The visual dichotomies between exterior/interior and nature/culture in “Satin and Fur” set up a whole slew of narrative possibilities for viewers to explore. A noted portrait and figurative artist and teacher, Williamson also submitted her oil painting “Madame S,” a portrait of a woman striking a pose in a black dress, which before “À La Mode” had been on display in June 2024 at the oldest art club in the United States: the Salmagundi Club in NYC. Another of her paintings, “The Audition,” earned Honorable Mention in the Artists Magazine 40th Annual Art Competition in 2023.

Also a Texan, Brady Sloane Duncan of the west Texas plains town of Abilene took home third place plaudits and $500 with “Reluctant Traveler,” a dominantly red-hued and geometrically patterned self-portrait with cat. Duncan says she uses self-portraiture to examine tensions between the personal and the public. On her online artist’s page, she asks: “How and why do we use personal embellishment to shape others’ views of ourselves? Are self-adornment and interior decor forms of expression or manipulation?”

Three of the exhibiting artists sewed up $100 honorable mentions with works in photography, oil and — hair. For “Aura,” Béle Benard, a multi-media artist based in Wichita, photographed a fashionable young woman amidst the sunlit buildings of downtown ICT. In “Before the Fête,” Gabrielle Tito of NYC captures the direct gaze of a blue-eyed girl whose expression is somehow indeterminate but guarded, like she has a secret. Tito, who spent her childhood between New York and Rome, Italy, is an artist trained in the Old Master tradition. Inspired by the relief sculpture, figurative paintings, and costume design sketches of her late aunt Rinnà Tito, an artist and costume designer in Rome, Tito melds classical technique with the fashion and artistic sensibilities of the moment.

In 2024, Trish Dool, hairstylist, educator, and creative director of Eric Fisher Salon in Wichita, entered the North American Hairstyling Awards, aka “the Oscars of hair,” and won in the avant-garde styling category. Two of her sculptures in hair are on display with supporting mannequins and photos in “À La Mode”: “OBot 1” and “OBot 3,” the latter of which garnered an honorable mention. Exuberantly futuristic, Dool’s creations are at once organic (literally), free-flowing forms and architecturally rigid constructions that defy description but engage the imagination. After earning her cosmetology license in Wichita in 1995, Dool studied at Vidal Sassoon schools in London and Toronto. She recalls that her first creative project was “giving my Barbie dolls haircuts.”

Among the other artists represented in the show are Behnaz Darabi of Ruston, Louisiana, whose painting “Women’s Voice” evokes a silent scream that seems to echo, not through nature like Edvard Munch’s acclaimed “The Scream,” but through a plastic, suffocating culture; Nate Collier, a fashion designer and illustrator from Brooklyn, New York, who has three digital media prints featuring Black men in contemporary urban activewear on display; Angela Corson of Kingwood, Texas, with her “Tight Fitting” metal sculpture of a woman’s corset-covered bust incised with organic shapes and lines; and Rhonda Urdang, from Flagstaff, Arizona, whose “Frida Kahlo & Federico Garcia Lorca in Quarantine with Themselves” is a femmage — a feminist collage — portrait of the two notable figures, created with hand-cut found paper, historical elements, and bits of the New York Times newspaper.

There are jewelry pieces by Deborah Meyers of NYC and two artworks by Brenda Jones of Peyton, Colorado, one being the stitched fibers and encaustic “Prairie Queen,” an apron-shaped, quilt-like piece measuring 12’ x 5’ that hangs as the largest single work in the show. Chris Hornsby, from Knoxville, Tennessee, has two strikingly detailed mixed media pieces that evoke fantastical clothing from storybook times: “She Cometh,” a witchy, dark-hued, high-necked outfit complete with high-heeled black shoes, and “Long Dusty Coat,” a set of traveler’s garb that includes shirt, trousers, and worn boots, all in browns and russets. With four works in acrylic of characters styled in his own unique mix of classic fantasy and psychedelic surrealism (titled “A Good Buzz,” “Escape Velocity,” “Queen of Hearts” and “Up the Down Stairs”), Bryce Holt of Kansas City, Missouri, has the most pieces on display of all the exhibiting artists. (Find a list of other artists in "The Details" below.)

Embracing works that include nods to Old Master flair, the utterly avant-garde, and everything in between, “À La Mode” is a runway showcase of some beautifully rendered artistic interpretations and chronologies of how fashion fashions us.

The Details

"À La Mode: The Language of Fashion in Art"
January 10-March 15, 2025, Gladys & Karl T. Wiedemann Gallery at Mark Arts, 1307 N. Rock Road in Wichita

In conjunction with "À La Mode," Shana Levenson will give a virtual artist’s talk at 6 p.m. Friday, January 24. Register here.

Additional exhibiting artists: Collin Allen of Wichita; Kara Allen, Falls Church, Virginia; Brandin Barón, San Francisco, California; Mary Binford Miller, El Dorado, Kansas; Carmen Bruhn, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota; Roberta Dyer, San Diego, California; Karen Eisele, Houston, Texas; Engy Elgarf, Andover, Kansas; Linda Ganstrom, Hays, Kansas; Kassandra Gibson, Stillwater, Oklahoma; Jennifer Gironda, Dania Beach, Florida; Bella Gurevich, St. Louis, Missouri; Maria Housley, Portland, Oregon; Jess LaPrade, Corpus Christi, Texas; Justin Lister, Park City, Kansas; Jean McGuire, Shawnee, Kansas; Arend Neyhouse, Newark, Delaware; Brenda Noiseux, Manchester, New Hampshire; Stephanie Pierson, Sacramento, California; Ronnie Rector, Incline Village, Nevada; Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, Red Lodge, Montana; Elaine Rusk, Bel Aire, Kansas; Autumn Savage, Bixby, Oklahoma; Paul Schulenburg, Eastham, Massachusetts; Jim Simpson, Wichita; Damia Smith, Seattle, Washington; Richard P. Stevens, Tallahassee, Florida; Tommy Ta, Wichita; Austin Turley, Portland, Oregon; and Yeqiang Wang, Topeka, Kansas, all add their visual comments to the exhibition’s discussion about the language of fashion in art.

Mark Arts is open to the public 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. "À La Mode" will be closed to the public on January 24 for a private event.

Learn about current and upcoming Mark Arts exhibitions.

Connie Kachel White is a writer and editor who has written about the arts in Wichita for going on three decades now. White, whose communications gigs range from book-editing to investigative reporting, is the founding and current editor of Wichita State University’s The Shocker magazine. More of her writing can be found online at theshockermagazine.com and shockerconnect.com.

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