Exploring my love of fashion, an industry that is one of the leading pollutants, has led me to think critically about the way we interact with our clothing. Mending has been an exercise that I've found fun, beautiful, sustainable, and important in an age where clothing is made to be discarded and our closets are an endless cycle of unloved fabric. This painting documents five of my friend's garments and one of my own that needed mending. I mended each and sewed tags with my friend's initials into their garments. The red thread that weaves in and out of each garment is a physical representation of my friends' connection to me and to each other despite these mends going into six different closets, being worn on, and traveled with.
Stitching us Together
Arcadia
a region or scene of simple pleasure and quiet, an unspoilt land populated by innocent rustics, utopia, eden
Gramercy Park was built in the 1830s and was always meant for the upper class. A trustee of the park claims “Looking at this landscape is a gift to the people of this community. Just to walk by and look at it is a gift."
I used oil paints on a wood panel to display the relationship between inside and outside the gates by showing Gramercy as a utopic paradise. A mother nature-like figure lays in the grass emitting light, contrasting the darker, more bleak city outside of the iron gates. I used more messy wash techniques to paint the outside while inside the park is more rendered and smooth.
Blumarine Spring 23'
Fashion Illustrations
These fashion Illustrations were done for Northeastern University's Fashion Magazine, The Avenue, for an upcoming issue. I used fineliners, markers, and gouache to render pieces from the water-themed ​collection.
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Styling and Photoshoot
"Divergent Uniforms"
2024
I styled these four looks, about where I'm from, for my Styling course with Stylist, Nick Nelson. Growing up in New England I observed wealthy kids often adopting rebellious personas despite their privilage culminating in a blend of preppy and edgy styles. My own experience reflects a fascination with and even glamourization of this culture. This assignment captures this phenomenon through four looks depicting private school students ditching class to smoke cigarettes. They've altered and accessorized their uniforms.
Grenade Inspired Wearable Designs and Illustrations
2022
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For this project I worked with a group to create a wearable structure. We were inspired by World War 1 and wanted to create something that honored the women of 1914. I had the idea to model the structure off of the design of a grenade shell. We worked together to create a pair of outfits that resembled a grenade on the bottom and an explosion at the top, using a variety of materials. I then did the illustration to go with it.
West Hartford
Bus Shelter Design
2021
I was selected as one of ten artists, and the only student artist, to design and paint a bus shelter in my hometown. My idea was for the viewer to feel like they were underwater when waiting for their bus. I painted the subject with her hand pressed against the other side of the glass, the sun reflecting on her skin, and her hair flowing in the water.
Covid Mask Sculpture
2021
I wanted to make this sculpture as a response to the ongoing covid pandemic. In 2021 I had felt like Covid would never end as the news was becoming more and more discouraging. I have always been fascinated and inspired by the human face and was inspired by the thought of humans evolving to have masks be a part of us, so I created a mask that has the facial features it blocks. A hand in a surgical glove holds up the mask to further the message. ​I sculpted this piece out of air-dry clay and mounted it on styrofoam.
Beaded Covid Mask
2022
As a continuation of my Covid mask sculpture, I wanted to create a wearable piece. I decided to make an entirely beaded mask using wire mesh as a base, and beading hundreds of tiny beads and pearls to create the skin, lips and nose;
a tedious process that took close to ten hours to complete. ​
Contact
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email: instagrams:
nicai045@newschool.edu @ianni.art
nicastroij@gmail.com @ian_nicastro
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