Natale Adgnot: Exploring fallibility through thread, thermoplastic, and bird idioms

Natale Adgnot’s sculptural practice is a tactile exploration of human fallibility. From horsehair to thermoplastic, each material in her work carries a story, connecting cultural influences and life experiences. Raised in Texas, Adgnot’s roots trace back to a childhood surrounded by horses, while her time in Paris couture brought an immersion in textiles and craftsmanship. After moving to Japan, she was introduced to washi paper and sumi ink. Today, she works from her studios in Brooklyn and New Paltz, using sculpture as a tool to unravel biases and reimagine connections.

Her latest exhibition, “Mending Fences,” is a collaboration with Tegan Brozyna Roberts at Gallery 1923 in Brooklyn, on view through November 17. The show shifts from the research-heavy narrative of her prior solo exhibition, “Life Cycle of a Bird Brain,” embracing a more intuitive, material-driven process. The visible use of thread ties into the show’s theme of bridging dissimilar elements, both conceptually and materially. Adgnot’s work speaks to the ways we perceive—and often misconstrue—the world, with every piece holding a deeper metaphor.

With a busy fall season behind her, “Mending Fences” serves as both a culmination and a step toward what’s next in Adgnot’s practice.

You’ve had a packed fall schedule, with one exhibition after another. With “Mending Fences” open through November 17, this show sounds like a collaborative exploration of textiles. Can you share what it’s been like to shift from each project into this final fall show and the energy it brings for you and Tegan Brozyna Roberts?

Natale Adgnot: This exhibition is the culmination of a somewhat frenzied past few weeks when I’ve suddenly felt free to explore my new palette of materials without the main focus being on storytelling. My recent solo exhibition, “Life Cycle of a Bird Brain,” took the better part of a year to produce and it was carefully executed around a concept with a lot of research and specific details. So for “Mending Fences,” it was nice to just relax and let the materials lead the way for a bit. 

The use of thread in a more visible way is one of the upshots of this way of working. I’m pretty sure I’ll take that with me once I loop back to the research-heavy work I seem to gravitate towards.

What draws you to unravel human biases in your work, and why use abstract sculpture as your tool for it?

Natale Adgnot: The unlikely collision of these two fascinations—cognitive bias and sculpture—happened in my work because of my unique set of life circumstances. The exact moment when they combined into what I now consider my art practice is hard to pin down, but I know I’ve always been a mediator and I’ve always been passionate about making things with my hands.

The interest in human bias came about through my frustration with our collective inability to get along, first as the middle child in a blended family, and later as a young adult out in the world. In my twenties, I left a relatively insular life in Texas and moved to France. The circumstances of my birth; my family, country, religion, gender role, etc. started out completely invisible to me in the way that water is invisible to fish in a tank. Once I left that environment, they became so much more apparent to me as a set of variables that are different for every person on the planet. I realized that strife was often a product of a panoply of biases that each of us is born into. We have to choose to evaluate, and perhaps extricate ourselves from, whatever worldview is thrust upon us by the chance of our birth, but most people will never jump out of the proverbial fish tank. 

It took me a bit longer to settle into sculpture but looking back, I think it was inevitable. So much of what I want to say through my work can be conveyed more succinctly with materials that extend beyond two dimensions. I began sewing as a child and picked it back up in Paris where I returned to school and worked in fashion. While working for a couture designer, I helped the atelier make sculptural accessories for the runway out of wire, foam, animal skins and more. Here I am 15 years later using textiles and other tactile materials in my work, so I think I was always bound to go 3D at some point.  

Your materials carry stories. Horsehair, sumi ink, thermoplastic—they each hold a chapter of your life. Do you feel they speak to each other within the piece, or is their tension part of the work’s magic?

Natale Adgnot: I hope they speak to each other. In the same way that I’ve tried to interact with people who are different from me, seeking to understand them and their points of view, I strive to create visual harmony or exciting interactions between dissimilar materials.

You’ve mentioned that living in places like France and Japan shaped your worldview and practice. How do those experiences continue to influence your work?

Natale Adgnot: In a very literal sense, my geographical history is shaping my work through the materials you just mentioned. The horsehair represents my childhood in Texas because my mom was a horse trainer and I spent a lot of time in that rural setting. The use of textiles is a natural outgrowth of my time in Paris couture. From Japan, I brought back a love of washi paper, sumi ink, and igusa, which is the fragrant grass that tatami mats are made from. And thermoplastic is a versatile material that can be what you want it to be. It feels like the promise of New York City.  

As exotic and bewildering as those places were to me upon arrival, my initial move away from rural/suburban Texas to the heart of Washington DC in 1998 was the biggest culture shock of my life. That sudden proximity to people with dramatically different worldviews continues to reverberate in my work and my life. France became my chosen home when I became a naturalized citizen and I have a feeling I will return someday.

“Bird Brains” dives into the quirks of language—why idioms, and why birds? Are there any favorite expressions you loved sculpting into form?

Natale Adgnot: The introduction of birds into my practice happened by tugging at a loose thread that just kept on unraveling. In a previous series, I had made some feather-like details and liked how they looked, so I started researching birds online without knowing where it was heading. Again and again, I came across familiar expressions that borrowed bird imagery like “don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” “the canary in the coal mine,” and “burying one’s head in the sand.” It occurred to me that what these all have in common is that they speak to human nature and fallibility, which is at the heart of my practice. 

So far, two of my favorite interpretations of these expressions are Birds of a Feather Flock Together which uses four layers of wood and fabric with hundreds of thermoplastic details to create the feeling of a large starling murmuration, and The Early Bird Gets the Worm, which depicts a bird with a worm in its belly using sheer organdy for the bird’s skin and a yarn-wrapped dowel to represent the worn.

Textile art is having a resurgence, being taken more seriously in fine art. How does it feel to work with textiles now, as their story evolves? Do you see it as bridging art and craft, or blurring the line entirely?

Natale Adgnot: In a crit group a couple of years ago, I was asked the question “why do you use the materials you use?” This is the question that led me back to the box full of fabric that had been sitting on my shelf for a decade and to dust off my sewing machine. It feels like a homecoming for me to finally use textiles and fiber in my work as a sculptor. For the longest time, I had a line in my mind that separated my work in fashion from my work as an artist, and it felt like a breakthrough to let the two merge. My main thought is, “what took me so long?” 

I hope the art world is getting better at judging artwork on the merits of its message and execution instead of its messenger and medium. So-called women’s work has been denigrated for too long.

As the director of N/A Project Space, a seasonal art space in the Hudson Valley, how has curating shaped your eye? Does running the space feed back into your own practice—and what do you have planned for the new season?

Natale Adgnot: I’m still cutting my teeth as a curator, both at N/A Project Space and as a new member of the curating collective Underdonk. In the last couple of years of thinking like a curator, I’ve found that I’m always looking for links between artworks and artists, whether consciously or not. It’s more interesting to look at other people’s work when you’re taking it in as part of a larger conversation. As I put together shows for both of these spaces in 2025, I will undoubtedly be thinking about the state of the world and women’s roles in it. Hopefully I can contribute to that conversation in a way that moves us forward.

Featured image: Natale Adgnot, Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch, Acrylic and enamel on thermoplastic, washi paper, sumi ink, cotton fabric and chicken wire, 110 × 50 × 45 in.