Historically, the depiction of drapery in art has served as a metaphor for what lies hidden beneath the surface. Drawing the folds of fabric becomes both a shield and a revelation, offering glimpses into the contours of what may be beneath — an interplay of exposure and concealment, and an exploration of thresholds between the familiar and the strange, the intimate and the public. Corrugations remind us of a central fact of perception: we can never see all of something at once.

 

Friess draws inspiration from the surgical theatre — the moment the body is covered with sterile drapes for a procedure, a moment that, for the artist, marks a kind of metamorphosis from human subject to object. These scenes, documented over several years during her work as a surgical nurse, serve as a point of departure in her drawings. In her drawing process, these segments of surgical drapery are often merged with arrangements of domestic textiles, forming assemblages that negotiate between the homely and the unhomely, ultimately coalescing into a Gestalt.