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Natalie Shahinian

Natalie_Shahinian

Natalie Shahinian loves watching fashion shows on YouTube. Paris Fashion Week, Milan, London, New York, Copenhagen, you name it, she will watch on repeat. Why? Two reasons: one, she considers fashion to be the barometer of what’s happening culturally, globally, and two, it might be the last art form where aesthetics is of concern. By conception, fashion is both battlefield and testing ground determining where innovation and risk, merit good design and luxury. As an industry, it is under pressure to help address the environmental impact measured against multiple markets like custom, made-to-order, limited edition, second-hand and reuse. The irony is, if the objective is to create “less waste” then we actually have to use more materials to do so. And yet minimalism tends to define class and how cultured we are, while maximalism suggests an anxious mentality, always wanting “just in case.” Accordingly, survival of the fittest, or “fit” (abbreviated from “outfit”) becomes an extension of how we, the consumer, participate in this exchange, perhaps reconsidering that it is our own ideas, embellishments and adoption of materials that make us in a class of our own as daring, innovative and one-of-a-kind as the attitudes, in fashion, being marketed to us.

Since clothing can be fussy with cut and sizing (that, and Shahinian can’t machine sew!) She feels that accessories are a great way of satisfying using as much materials as possible to limit waste while appreciating the existing design and aesthetics that endears fashion as responding to our desires, and not us to its. Shahinian's brooches are made from a combination of materials including onion, avocado, lemon and mandarin netting; sock display hooks; mayonnaise and ice cream lid fittings; aluminum pop cans; candy wrappers and more. Her “creamer” daisies in particular, are made from the plastic pull tops of carton cream, embellished with wire, strings or paracord, plastic or glass beads. Pendants are made from a variety of black walnuts with many collected from the parks and pathways connecting university colleges and legislative buildings. 

Shahinian bills herself as a creative pathfinder: someone who creates relationships among varied subjects as a pathway for others to experience. Usually, these relationships are presented as curatorial projects and writing about art. However, since they are developed from observations about habits or events of public interest, their pathways can occur in corresponding form. For example, social media posts, euphemistic humor and dinner parties relate ideas about community and support, stereotypes and acceptance, rituals and expectations. At university, she realized this type of relating had a name – Semiotics – which she studied at the University of Toronto, Canada, as well as Art and Art History. These studies affected her pursuits to great degree – from tour guiding at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York to copy editing at Canadian Art magazine – and now, pedi-degree, as she explores walking art as a way to relate our experiences around politics and economy.

portfolio.jpg View Natalie Shahinian's artwork in the 2024 exhibition, Doin' Our Own Thing!

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