


E.V. Day: Divas Ascending
Jun 18, 2021 – Jun 18, 2023
Artist E.V. Day has repurposed costumes from the New York City Opera archives to make Divas Ascending, a series of sculptures that transform familiar icons of women’s empowerment and entrapment into new objects that confound conventional readings of these cliches.
Using tension to suspend, stretch, and shred garments and to create forms that the artist likens to futurist abstract paintings in three dimensions, Day has created work that transforms rigid symbols into a range of emotions: anxiety, ecstasy, liberation, and release.
This selection represents eight of the thirteen originally commissioned by New York City Opera.
Sponsors
This exhibition is sponsored by the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc.; the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc.; Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo; and the Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson, Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust.
Support is also provided by Glenn Cecil + Elizabeth Sowder — Ellen + Rudy van Thiel — Debbie Meade — Fink’s Jewelers — Good Looks/bliss — MKB Realtors — She’s International Boutique — Lesleigh Strauss — SUNBELT Rentals.
Presented by







SELECTED WORKS

Left: Manon-Ghost Angel (Manon, Massenet), c. 2009-2010, Retired wardrobe from New York City Opera, Stainless steel rings, monofilament and hardware, 120h x 72w x 72d in. Right: Mimi-Rigor Mortis (La boheme, Puccini), c. 2009-2010, Retired wardrobe from New York City Opera, Stainless steel rings, monofilament and hardware, 120h x 72w x 72d in.
KEEP EXPLORING

Wonders of Glass: From the Collection of Susan S. and David R. Goode
View Exhibit