An Inside Look at Polish-A Performance by Chiffon Thomas

Polish is an hour-long performance created by artist Chiffon Thomas, taking place inside the artist’s exhibition, The Cavernous at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum on Saturday, February 3, 2024.
Thomas performed inside his capacious sculpture, Untitled (Dome, Figure 1), which he has outfitted with a miniaturized hatch. Turning his sculpture into a vessel or portal to an undetermined landscape, the artist enacts a series of choreographed movements timed to percussive sound and orchestrated lighting to guide healing, passage, and regeneration.
Chiffon Thomas: The Cavernous is curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, Chief Curator.
Chiffon Thomas’ (b. 1991) multifaceted practice incorporates embroidery, collage, drawing, and sculpture to explore the self as split, fractured, and transforming. In his work, Thomas contends with the crafted body in his work, examining wider issues of gender, race and sexuality. Thomas holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He has completed prominent residencies with the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME and the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL. His work is in the permanent collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; among others. Thomas is a 2022 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Fellowship. Thomas’ work is currently on view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum for his first solo museum exhibition, The Cavernous, and at the Hammer Museum for Made in LA 2023. Thomas is represented by Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.
Video directed, produced, and edited by Gloria Perez, The Aldrich's Digital Media and Marketing Coordinator.