Clothed: Until Further Notice (2025)

Close

Materials: Clothing, Found-objects, Printmaking, installation, video, publication

Exhibited at Stride Art Gallery.

Clothed: Until Further Notice is an evolving investigation into the intimate connections between clothing, identity, and memory through the lens of non-binary gender experience. Using garments archived from my closet as primary materials, this body of work navigates the fluidity between masculinity and femininity, while foregrounding the histories and stories embedded in material culture. The work is as much about personal transformation and mourning as it is about collective participation. I invite viewers to reflect on how clothing both shapes and is shaped by our bodies, desires, and social identities.

The Clothing Archive

The Clothing Archive is a curated collection of garments from my own closet that trace my journey of gender questioning and identity formation. Each piece carries a story, not only of my own, but also of previous owners, whose histories and experiences, I believe, linger in the fabric. Tags sewn into each item include handprinted descriptions and QR codes linking to an ongoing digital archive where viewers can document new ownership and contribute to the continued lifeline of each garment.

By mapping the travels and transformations of these clothes, this project highlights the living nature of objects and their role as vessels for memory, through resilience and grieving. I invite viewers to consider how clothing mediates our relationship with our bodies and the communities around us.

The Paper Dolls

Materials: Photolithography, Copperplate Intaglio on Rice Paper and Hahne Muhle Paper

Inspired by childhood memories of playing with paper dolls, this series of hand-printed dolls features my own image, with clothing designs drawn from patterns and garments from my personal closet. The dolls encourage interactive exploration of gender expression, allowing viewers to mix and match clothing without traditional boundaries of masculinity and femininity.

Playful and provocative, this work also grapples with complex themes of objectification and body autonomy. By presenting my own body as an object of play, the dolls provoke questions about control, vulnerability, and the gaze—highlighting the tensions within non-binary embodiment and the cultural frameworks that shape it.

The Publication

The publication created as part of Clothed: Until Further Notice, extends my work with clothing and paper dolls into reflective print, treating both as archive of my lived experience. The project considers how queer bodies navigate visibility, concealment, and authenticity within social and political climates that demand exposure.

Through layered images and fragmentary text, the publication reflects on clothing as a living archive of gender and identity. Rather than functioning as documentation alone, the publication becomes an entry point into my own intimate space, holding vulnerable memories and experiences from my time creating this body of work. It inhabits the tension between being seen and being shielded, a count-archive for both preserving and self-determining visibility.

Read it Here

Print-out Here

LEX HILDERMAN