Theo Trotter

SAIC SHOWS 2025 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Graduates

SAIC SHOWS 2025 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Fiber and Material Studies

Thresholds

Through the use of materials associated with medical gender transition, I explore transness, alongside larger themes of transformations as necessary but painful experiences. I am interested in imagery which leads the viewer to the zone between attraction and repulsion as a way of exploring and challenging the dichotomy of injury and healing. My work utilizes fiber and textile materials and practices, however it crosses outside these boundaries into the categories of sculpture or installation. Two recent bodies of work include bobbin lace made from silicone and weavings made primarily from unraveled bandages.

Untitled III, 2024, Unraveled ace bandage threads, unraveled gauze bandage threads, silicone, gauze bandages soaked in silicone, silk, roving, handspun yarn, handspun yarn plied with unraveled ace bandage threads, ace bandage threads plied with gauze bandage threads, roving soaked in silicone, 7'x8"x5"

detail of Untitled III

Untitled II, 2024, unraveled ace bandages, unraveled gauze bandages, silk, silicone, 6.5’x7"x5"

Untitled, 2024, unraveled ace bandages, unraveled gauze bandages, silk, silicone, 6’x5”x0.5’

The sculptures included in Graduate Exhibition II largely consist of unraveled gauze and ace bandages. I pull apart bandages strand by strand for use as the weft in these weavings. In this way they transform from one woven structure to another. Ace bandages have a wide variety of uses, however I draw on my personal associations with them as a means of binding the chest. Gauze bandages, on the other hand, are used to care for surgical wounds. These weavings also utilize silk for the warp, as a reference to surgical sutures which are often made from silk.The democratic nature of the woven structure unites materials that resemble exposed insides of a body or open wounds, alongside materials meant to heal and conceal the body, integrating them on a single plane.
An important aspect of all of my sculptures is how they occupy space and choreograph the viewer’s interaction with them. Due to their soft and malleable bodies, and the multitude of ways they can be installed, they adapt differently to every environment they are placed in. Through their physical vulnerability, they simultaneously open themselves up to the viewer and challenge them to navigate the installation. Just as trans bodies do not conform to the fixity of “before and after” transition photos which conceptualize bodies as projects which can be brought to a final conclusion, these objects reject the idea that they should inhabit a fixed state. They also challenge these concepts through their ambiguous forms, which suggest beings in the middle of a transformation.

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