Soft Sculpture with Purple Haze Screenprinting

Inspired by the abstract work Purple Haze, this piece evolves the eye-painted strokes into a soft-sculptural installation. Translating the gestural marks and saturated purples of the original work into three dimensions, the piece manifests as a large-scale spider climbing the walls of the artist’s studio, blurring the boundaries between image, object, and environment.

The spider functions as both symbol and structure. Long associated with intelligence, patience, and quiet power, it embodies a form of creation that relies not on pursuit but on construction—an organism that builds a trap and waits. This duality of beauty and unease echoes throughout the work, where attraction and discomfort coexist. The sculpture also nods to sculptor Liz Craft, particularly her fiberglass black widow, reimagined here through softness, textile, and color rather than rigidity.

Material transformation is central to the piece. A reclaimed white bedsheet was dyed in deep violet tones, then screen-printed with layered excerpts from Purple Haze, extending the original artwork onto fabric. From this printed textile, the spider’s form was constructed; eight articulated legs, a rounded abdomen, and a face; supported internally by wire armatures that allow the sculpture to hold deliberate, expressive poses. The eyes are rendered using Ukrainian cross-stitch, introducing a slow, meditative handcraft into an otherwise bold, graphic surface. Red fabric integrated into lilac-dyed cloth references the iconic markings of the black widow, grounding the sculpture in both symbolism and lineage.

The installation is completed by a web of dense purple yarn stretched across the studio’s corner walls, transforming the space into a site of entanglement and tension. Purple Haze celebrates craft, innovation, and material experimentation, while exploring themes of adaptation, agency, and the quiet power of building one’s own systems of survival.