Pae White
Born 1963 in Pasadena, California
Lives and Works in Los Angeles, California
Ignoring traditional boundaries between the applied and fine arts, Pae White encourages viewers to take a deeper look at familiar encounters and ordinary objects. In 2006, White began creating tapestries with photographic images of crumpled aluminum foil and plumes of smoke. Still, Untitled, one of her most recent smoke tapestries, stages what White describes as the cotton’s “dream of becoming something other than itself” by contrasting an image of something immaterial with the physicality of fabric. This vision of an ephemeral moment suspended in space—the slight and fleeting unfurling of smoke monumentalized in the heroic tradition of tapestries—transforms an everyday image into a seductive evocation of transience and longing.
READ About the Artist
"Women's Work"
—T Magazine/The New York Times (February 2010)
"Pae White"
—Artforum (May 2009)
"Previews: Pae White"
—Artforum (May 2008)
"The Remix; Perchance to Dream"
—The New York Times (October 2006)
"Luxe, calme et volupté"
—Frieze (April 2002)
"Pae White at greengrassi"
—Frieze (March 1999)
"Pae White at I-20"
—Frieze (November 1997)
Pae White, Smoke Knows, 2009. Cotton and polyester, 114 × 258 in. (289.6 × 655.3 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy greengrassi, London and 1301PE, Los Angeles. Photograph by Fredrik NilsenThis work is not on view in the Museum’s galleries.
