LeBrie Rich | Artist Statement
LeBrie Rich creates felt-based sculpture that explores our relationship with and collective nostalgia for food. Her Grocery series of life-size branded food products, like Fritos, Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, and M&Ms, are lovingly felted and stitched with painstaking attention to detail. The almost irresistibly soft texture of wool felt and the many hours of labor clearly spent on each piece invite us to slow down and (re)consider our connection to these familiar products. This work is both a tribute to and a critique of not only the foods that have shaped our lives and our memories, but also their branding. Through Rich’s careful rendering, each piece becomes a precious, tactile totem of our throwaway culture and an opportunity to reflect on our relationship to it.
LeBrie Rich explores the visual possibilities and emotional resonance of felted wool from her home studio in Portland, Oregon . She has been awarded artist residencies at the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, FL (2013/2015), Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, WY (2018), and Kayamori House in the mountains outside of Nara, Japan (2012). Her felt sculptures, collages, wearable fiber projects, and workshops for youth have been written about in the New York Times, Hand/Eye Magazine, Make, the Oregonian, and Portland Monthly.
Instagram @lebrierich
Web www.lebrie.com
Green Giant Frozen Peas
LeBrie Rich, needle felting and stitching on wool felt, 6” x 7” x 1.25”, 2018