Estelle Maisonett

Artist Statement:

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Estelle Maisonett (b.1991, Bronx, NY) is a mixed-media interdisciplinary artist that uses found objects, photography, and sourced clothing to create life size collages that document her experience living in NYC. Using sourced clothing she creates figures that are void of the human body to explore how the figures relationship to consumer products, location, and material impact the interpretation of their identity. The interior and exterior spaces she builds in her collages incorporate the familiarity of her experience living in the Bronx and upper Manhattan through photographs and archived found objects. Photographs and faux finishes of materials such as brick, concrete, wood or patterned fabric, allows Estelle to investigate meaning and value within materiality. Juxtaposing objects from reality with gestural drawings or paintings, she explores how the relationship between object and environment inform perception of a figure or allude to prescribed identity. A social and interactive process, her interdisciplinary collages are a form of self and communal reflection that question how individuals create preconceived notions of value, economic status, race, culture, sexual orientation, and gender based on personal experiences. The work takes an explorative approach to the intersection of identity inspired by her own lived experience.