Monica Bonvicini

Divergent Threads (2025) are freestanding sculptures built from powder-coated metal grid structures associated with order, containment, and industrial design. Around these frameworks, hand-woven leather belts cascade downward in flowing, intertwined movements, eventually fanning out in a gesture of release. Traditionally linked to discipline, authority, and masculine dominance, the leather belts here adopt a more playful, expressive quality. They settle, lean into the emptiness of the frame, and resist conforming to its structure. While the frame offers support, it does not dictate form—highlighting a crucial shift in the balance of power. The sculptures become a metaphor for autonomy within constraint, and for agency that emerges not from dominance, but from divergence.

The powder-coated colors reference the visual language of the drawing series “Never Tire”, which draws inspiration from protest aesthetics and the public demand for justice embodied in movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. This reference extends further through connections to works like “Power Joy Humor Resistance”, anchoring “Divergent Threads” within a lineage of politically engaged art that uses emotion and play as vehicles for resistance.

Divergent Threads presents a sculptural dialogue between structure, authority, subversion, and play.