Joseph E. Malson
“Cat #14,” 24” x 17” , Found Material, Thread, Cellophane Bag
Joseph E. Malson is a multi-disciplinary assemblage artist who works with found, thrifted, and donated materials. Typically, he makes use of textiles that have been manipulated through handwork or piecework combined with what may be called kitsch or readily available media and objects to decontextualize and create new avenues of interpretation. Sometimes, he recreates those mass-produced objects using these methods, exploring the intersection of the mass-produced object, the handmade, the domestic, and the fine art space.
His use of materials attained through second-hand stores or from personal collections, along with the disruption of traditional crafts, coincides with how historically, in queer and other minority communities, we create new identities, new families, and new realities out of what is available to us.
Joseph E. Malson
Joseph E. Malson (b. Wilmington, NC) spent his early childhood in the deep South, raised primarily by his mother who was a self-taught artist and avid crafter. He spent his adolescence in the conservative Midwest where he experimented with makeup, vintage clothing, shoplifting, and skipping school. After years of juvenile delinquency, he returned to school earning his BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He has since completed a residency with Sulfur Studios in 2019 and exhibited at Courthouse Gallery in New York, Var Gallery in Wisconsin, and 39th Street Gallery in Maryland. He currently resides in Pennsylvania where he is enrolled in the Tyler School of Art & Architecture Fiber and Material Studies MFA program.