In person / Exhibition / Biomaterial
Negotiated Skin is an immersive, cross-media solo exhibition by New York-based artist Freda Xia, presented at Time To Be Happy Gallery. Bringing together wearable sculpture, suspended membrane works, mineral-pigment paintings, material studies, photographic documentation, and sound, the exhibition creates an evolving environment in which soft sculptural forms and paintings enter into close dialogue across body, material, time, and space.
For this exhibition, Xia develops translucent, membrane-like forms through layering, collapse, and visible acts of repair. Her fiber works evoke the presence of the body without depicting it directly, moving between garment, sculpture, and installation. Alongside them, mineral-pigment paintings of heads passing through New York City subway spaces offer a more figurative expression of Negotiated Skin, tracing bodies in motion, proximity, and separation.
The exhibition itself becomes an exploration of boundaries and negotiation: between intimacy and exposure, abstraction and figuration, material fragility and shared presence. Through layers of negotiation, skin becomes a surface of connection and immersion. During the opening, an organic sound environment, celebratory drinks, and light refreshments invite visitors to linger, gather, and engage with the work through embodied encounter, conversation, and perception.
No registration required!
Freda Xia is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in New York. With a background in painting, fashion design, and textiles, she is currently pursuing an MFA in Textiles at Parsons School of Design. Her practice moves between biomaterials, wearable sculpture, soft textile structures, and installation. Working with hand-reeled raw silk, wool, fruit waste, and protein-based biomaterials, she creates membrane-like forms that explore bodily memory, rupture, repair, and transformation. Her work investigates textiles as living systems of protection, adaptation, and material alternatives to petroleum-based surfaces.