Esther Marie Hall
Too Late to Turn Back Now

April 27th - May 26th, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 27th, 7-10pm

Monte Vista Projects is pleased to present a body of new works by Esther Marie Hall. The exhibition is framed around Peggy Phelan’s insight from Unmarked (1993), ”the pleasure of resemblance and repetition produces both psychic assurance and political fetishization.” The selective representation of certain individuals or groups, along with the privileges accorded to them, creates conditions conducive to tokenization, which in turn reinforces established power structures, value, and further marginalizes disenfranchised groups. Building upon this discourse, Hall expands upon Phelan's notion of resemblance and representation entrenched in power dynamics within textile visual culture and flat works. Hall produced over 100 drawings establishing a foundation for new pattern-making, and recognizing the heavy influence of Anglo-American politics in textile visual culture. The act of accumulation, stockpiling, and safekeeping revolves around ensuring an adequate supply, akin to safeguarding against potential scarcity. Conversely, Hall confronts the capitalist belief that prioritizes overproduction with the aim of maximizing returns or expecting a surplus in return for one's efforts.

Hall cuts, sews, dyes secondhand fabrics reconstructing the psychic significance of the previous owner. Too Late to Turn Back Now also features sculptural work by Hall in an effort to elaborate the spatial condition of how textile works are typically presented – against a wall; on the floor – and addressing the circumstantial relationship between sculpture and wall; sculpture and floor; sculpture and space.

Esther Marie Hall is a multidisciplinary artist with a primary focus on fiber and textile work based in Sacramento, CA. She uses her work to illustrate her cultural identity through the use of traditional Filipino and American crafting techniques such as weaving, crocheting, embroidery, and quilting. Esther utilizes these mediums with the intention of expanding this material’s language and reconfiguring the meaning of what a quilt can and cannot be, by stretching and skewing forms, using an array of material not typically found in traditional quilting, and thinking about them compositionally as paintings. Quilting has a long history of resistance and documenting the current state of affairs, so the use of this medium felt streamlined as her work has long had existentialist, anti-authoritarian, and climate disruption undertones. Hall predominantly collects and hoards fabric related ephemera and uses donated and secondhand materials as a representation of quantum entanglement with the idea of carrying on any energy the previous owner had intended for the material. 

Esther was born and raised in Northern California and has resided in Sacramento since 2011. She attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in San Francisco where her practice in textiles began. Hall has worked with organizations such as the Latino Center of Art and Culture, Planned Parenthood, and Facebook, and has shown work throughout California, Florida, Kentucky, and Washington.