Photo by Noel Woodford
Calli Roche, She/They (b.1990, Nashville Tennessee) is an American artist and patternmaker based in Brooklyn, New York.
Calli comes from a long line of dressmakers, tailors, and artisans from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Much of their work is rooted in the ability to create a well-constructed object. Using practical skills, developed out of necessity, they create artifacts that bring their inner world to life.
Frequently working with reclaimed objects, wood, skins, and textiles, the materials take on varied significance in each piece. Yet they often reference the fraught relationships between violence, identity, and sexuality. Calli draws from a legacy of artisanship, with much of the work serving both a very personal function and aiming to disrupt western distinctions between fine art and skilled craft.
Calli uses their art to fulfill a basic need for connection and healing. With the physical act of object making pulling out and working through thoughts and emotions, they ground and situate themself in the world and amongst the people nearby. As said in an interview for The Coastal Post:
“I can both connect to others as my internal world becomes tangible and also experience somatic relief in the physical act of creating.”
Arnold, John Felix. “Invitation to a Reverie.” The Coastal Post, 3 Nov. 2022.
Their latest body of work Ecdysis: Death to Dermis is currently part of the New Art for New York, Open Call Group Exhibition at The Shed through January 21st, 2024.