Author name: Saskia Clarke

Chellis Baird Redefines What a Painting Can Be text Anna Mikaela Ekstrand body suit Capezio  tights Falke  trenchcoat Lapointe  heels Christian Louboutin Over the past decade, of showing at prestigious galleries, institutions, and the odd member club, her work has been presented by leading galleries in New York and Paris. We visited her Long Island City studio to talk about how her work pushes boundaries by combining dress, movement, and the mechanics of fabric in new ways.   “After visiting the Museum of Modern Art, in my late twenties, I remember standing in front of a Barnett Newman painting and starting to cry. It was at that point that I knew I was going to share my art with the world,” Chellis Baird commented in a 2023 interview. In her early twenties, she was living in New York and working as a designer at Ralph Lauren, making her own art when she was off the clock. A dream for many, but she hadn’t quite made it yet. Hailing from a South Carolina textile town and educated at the Rhode Island School of Design—known for fostering cross-disciplinary education—Baird not only had a deep understanding of fabrics and their innovation from the get-go, but a passion for continuing to push their boundaries. Movement is deeply embedded in her practice, dancing ballet multiple days a week, she sees it as a hobby, but when a principal dancer from the New York City Ballet saw her, he likened her to a professional. She’s a Type A creative.          When Baird transitioned into making art full-time, living her dream, she literally painted the town red. The Touch of Red at the National Arts Club is among the many exhibitions that centered on her signature hue, red. Her works are sculptural paintings, or painterly sculptures—twisted, draped, and bound fiber that is dyed and painted. They are hard to pinpoint because she has created her own artistic language. Arguably, she is the leading artist who is moving the needle in fiber, painting, and sculpture, all wrapped up in one. She is also preparing for a museum presentation at the Bo Bartlett Center from August through December 2026, with a larger gallery footprint, she is thinking more expansively about spatial rhythm, duration, and how viewers physically move through and between the work. “I am especially interested in using color as atmosphere and shadow as a structural force,” she explains to me on a sunny afternoon.    Baird has had an extraordinary year with a major solo show in Paris with RX&SLAG and several shows with Hollis Taggart in New York, and during Miami Art Week, marking a significant expansion of her gallery presence. It’s really a big break, but to Baird, it feels less like a sudden opening and more like time finally cracking the pavement. We are in her Long Island City studio. The studio is a daily ritual for the artist, for her creation is a form of breath, like her ballet practice. Correcting me, she explains that rather than a breakthrough her work is a continuation of ongoing discipline, diligence, and an obsessive devotion to her craft.  dress Emma Krikorian  heels Christian Louboutin dress Emma Krikorian  heels Christian Louboutin  All around us are pieces from different times in Baird’s artistic career, finished and in progress, as a testament to her hard work. Her sun-drenched studio is filled with reference material as well—fabric and color swatches on hand and many museum catalogs on fashion, textiles, and art tucked away in various places. To avoid high shipping costs, ahead of her show in Paris, the gallery set her up with a local studio where she constructed a new choreography of making. Keeping a sketchbook recording color formulas, fabric techniques, title ideas, and personal notes. As she temporarily was away from her husband and very young children, Paris gave her a greater freedom, a fluid daily structure. Working under an intense deadline, the long, focused days, often seven to ten hours, and then moving through the city at night, dancing or lingering over late dinners, reminded her of her student years at RISD, when time felt expansive and porous. This sense of freedom and the city’s material palette and chromatic range — living near the Picasso Museum and the Centre Pompidou — deeply informed what became her most colorful body of work.  body suit Capezio  tights Falke  heels Christian Louboutin Embodiment, being in one’s own body, is spoken about when it comes to performance, but not often discussed when it comes to painting or sculpture; however, this grounding and playful aspect of the body is present in the art-making process. Sartorial experimentation helps guide Baird; sometimes she cosplays when she makes work—wearing period-style clothes to feel connected to her lineage and labor. “Clothing shifts posture, tempo, and emotional tone,” Baird explains.   At other times, she dresses formally to slow her gestures. Through these actions, the studio becomes a private territory where she can experiment with identity without external scrutiny. “Overall, the body is one of my most important tools; knowledge lives in muscle memory, in gesture, in rhythm, which is why I wear specific fabrics or silhouettes to harness a mood,” she continues. Having formerly worked as a clothing designer and now exploring textiles, Baird has a sophisticated understanding of fabrics, and her work delves into their composition, movement, and history. “High heels, for example, create elegance through precariousness. They reorganize the body’s relationship to gravity and time. These tensions, structure and softness, constraint and freedom, directly inform how I sculpt material,” Baird explains. In Paris, she began using the heel of a stiletto to create physical ruptures in the canvas, a gesture that is both elegant and violent. Acclaimed craft historian, Glenn Adamson described her piece Lace III, 2024 as representing the DNA of his group exhibition Drop, Cloth, as her work reveals rather than conceals the substrate, one of the conceptual bases of his show.  This new monochromatic body of work explores lace, explores

Changing Black Voices Curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton This April, curator and gallerist Destinee Ross-Sutton will present a special exhibition at the 20th anniversary of Market Art Fair in Stockholm, marking six years since her groundbreaking exhibition “Black Voices/Black Microcosm.” The presentation coincides with a concurrent show at her new Stockholm gallery, revisiting the ideas that helped shift global attention toward contemporary Black art.   Ross-Sutton first emerged as a leading voice during the 2020–21 season after curating three influential exhibitions: “Black Voices/Black Microcosm” at CFHILL in Stockholm (8 April–9 May 2020), the only physical exhibition to open as the world shut down due to Covid-19; “Black Voices: Friend of My Mind,” her inaugural gallery exhibition in New York; and the widely discussed “Say it Loud” series at Christie’s New York.   The Stockholm exhibition closed just 13 days before the killing of George Floyd sparked the global Black Lives Matter movement. Arriving at a pivotal moment when interest in contemporary art from the African diaspora was accelerating, these exhibitions helped expand the artistic canon and the art world’s commitment to artists of color. Since then, Ross-Sutton—splitting her time between New York and Stockholm—has continued to curate and advise independently.   “Honestly, I personally do not like too much attention,” she says when we meet for her third interview with Odalisque. “I prefer the work to speak for itself.” Often described as a visionary curator and tastemaker, Ross-Sutton has built a reputation for championing emerging artists—particularly young and underrepresented artists of color and female artists—often giving them their first gallery exhibition or international debut, something that most commercial galleries deem to “risky” financially. She is also an advocate for artists’ rights, implementing resale restrictions in her sales agreements since 2021 to help support a more sustainable secondary market. Her curatorial work spans major international platforms. She internationally debuted Khari Turner during the 59th Venice Biennale and co-curated “4000+ Years of African Art” at the Wall House Museum on St. Barths. Artists including Kehinde Wiley, Amoako Boafo, Tim Okamura and new stars like Vanessa Raw, have cited her as a muse, inspired by her dedication to reshaping the art world. “EARL”. Deborah Roberts. Image courtesy of the artist.  Through her foundation, Black Artist Collective, Ross-Sutton supports emerging African artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and women artists. Her 2024 Venice Biennale exhibition “Unapologetic WomXn: The Dream is the Truth” brought together thirty-four artists aged 25 to 89 exploring female sexuality and identity through the female gaze. The project grew out of conversations she began in 2021 with her husband about the complexity of womanhood—shaped by culture, race, economics, politics, and social expectations.   Continuing to prioritize international female and underrepresented voices, Ross-Sutton remains committed to a globally engaged program. On her opening her first gallery outside New York, Market Art Fair Director and CEO Sara Berner Bengtsson says, “I think you will contribute so much to the Stockholm art scene.”     We meet the 30-year-old curator on her way back to New York after the Cape Town Art Fair, making a brief stop in Stockholm for the opening of “Listening to Light” with Iranian painter Rey Hosseini. Born in Tehran, Hosseini describes the portraits as reflections of self-examination. Created in the aftermath of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the exhibition resonates with ongoing struggles for women’s rights in Iran.     Ross-Sutton’s Stockholm gallery opened in 2025 with “A New Beginning,” featuring Somali painter Najaax Harun and Sudanese-Somali ceramicist Dina Nur Satti—artists connected to regions long shaped by political unrest.                   Alongside curating and collecting internationally, she advises institutions and collectors on acquisitions, particularly contemporary African and African American art, but not limited to. Artists remain central to her approach. “I’m pretty much the complete opposite of 95% of the individuals at these art fairs,” she says with a laugh, with her colorful braids and being a young Black female. Born in Harlem in 1995, Ross-Sutton closed her first six-figure deal at Art Basel Miami Beach at age 23, placing works by Yinka Shonibare and Deborah Roberts with a foundation. Growing up in Harlem in the 1990s and early 2000s shaped her worldview. She left journalism studies in 2016, disillusioned with sensationalist media and convinced that curating exhibitions could have a deeper cultural impact. Her return to Stockholm was symbolic, marking five years since “Black Voices/Black Microcosm,” which brought together 31 artists from the African diaspora and introduced Scandinavian audiences to voices such as Amoako Boafo alongside artists who had never exhibited internationally. photography Jheyda McGarrell “Suspended Lotus”. Dina Nur Satti. Image courtesy of the artist. August 5th, 2023 (In Memoriam)”.Jordan Zayas Kelly.Image courtesy of the artist. Naomi Osaka and The Divine Mother”. Vanessa German. Image courtesy of the artist.   The project was followed by “Say it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud” at Christie’s in summer 2020, amid global protests against racism and police brutality, and later by “Black Voices – Friend of My Mind” her inaugural show at her New York gallery—then the largest exhibition dedicated to contemporary Black art in the United States.In total, fifteen artists—twelve female and three male—are included, with smaller works presented at the fair and larger pieces shown at the gallery.   Joshua Adokuru (Nigeria) – Rita Mawuena Benissan (Ghana) – Amoako Boafo (Ghana) – Phoebe Boswell (Kenya/UK) – Cydne Coleby (Bahamas) – vanessa german (US) – Najaax Harun (Somaliland) – Rugiyatou Ylva Jallow (Gambia/Sweden) – Jordan Zayas Kelly (US/UK) – Turiya Magadlela (South Africa) – Buqaqawuli Nobakada (South Africa) – Deborah Roberts (US) – Dina Nur Satti (Sudan/Somalia) – Larissa de Souza (Brazil) – Khari Turner (US).   “Artists reflect the times we live in,” Ross-Sutton says. “Otherwise, is it not simply decoration? Art should make you feel—it can provoke peace or shake you, asking you to confront your ideas.” Yellow Nails”.Amoako Boafo.Image courtesy of the artist Opening of “Listening to Light”. Destinee Ross-Sutton and Rey Hosseini. ROSS-SUTTON GALLERY, Artillerigatan 8, 114 51 Stockholm