The Clayman Institute Artist's Salon Featuring Irene Carvajal

The Clayman Institute's Fall Artist's Salon is excited to welcome Irene Carvajal, a multidisciplinary Costa Rican-American artist. Explore the beauty and purpose of her work through a one hour presentation.

In garments and garment culture Irene Carvajal found the object with which she could communicate her ideas about the pressure of globalized culture towards local culture. Clothing is both personal and universal, human and de-humanizing, utilitarian and decorative. Garments and our interaction with them became a metaphor for globalization and its ripple effect. When seen as more than just clothing, garments become something full of social meaning — historic, political and cultural weight modifies and transforms the ubiquitous object into something larger. By eliminating the body and submitting the mass produced garment to the physical pressures of the printing press, Irene seeks to explore these complex social and economic pressures.

Using a combination of printmaking, sculpture, found objects, technology and viewer participation Irene creates installations that at once seem both familiar and unexpected.