LUCINE KAPLAN

ARTIST BIO

Lucine Kaplan (b. 1996) is an American fiber artist based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, internationally recognized as the first artist to pioneer the use of nylon stockings as a two dimensional fiber art medium on hook based canvas. Working at the intersection of fashion, feminism, and material memory, Kaplan transforms donated hosiery into tactile compositions that examine bodily presence, cultural identity, and the evolving narratives surrounding women in Western society.

Since 2013, Kaplan has developed a distinctive practice rooted in process driven experimentation and conceptual inquiry. Nylons collected from women, drag performers, and dancers across the United States are upcycled, torn, and meticulously applied to handmade hook canvases, allowing the material itself to function as both medium and subject. Through this approach, she asserts a new visual language that explores the relationship between garment, body, and memory. Each work carries traces of lived experience, challenging viewers to reconsider the cultural symbolism of hosiery beyond fashion and into the realm of historical and emotional artifacts.

Kaplan’s practice interrogates the cyclical nature of gender roles, beauty standards, and labor expectations placed upon women. By referencing hosiery as a marker of conformity, autonomy, performance, and resistance, her work bridges contemporary feminist discourse with the historical lineage of fashion in fine art. The tension between fragility and strength inherent in nylon material mirrors the complexities of identity and embodiment that underpin her conceptual framework.

A graduate of Naropa University’s Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art program, founded by artist Alex Grey, Kaplan has pursued a multidisciplinary approach informed by both spiritual inquiry and material innovation. She will soon begin graduate studies at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where she will pursue a Master’s degree in Art Business, further expanding her engagement with the global art market while continuing to evolve her groundbreaking fiber practice.


ARTIST STATEMENT

Ripping the Seams is an ongoing and continually evolving fiber art collection through which I examine the cultural and historical legacy of hosiery through a feminist lens. The work traces the garment’s transformation from a utilitarian object into a charged symbol shaped by centuries of women’s labor, desire, conformity, and autonomy. By centering hosiery as both subject and material, I investigate how something worn so intimately against the body can absorb personal and collective histories over time.

Each piece is constructed using torn nylon stockings that I draw directly onto hand built hook based canvases. The process is physically demanding and intentional, rooted in gestures of tension, stretching, fastening, and release. These actions mirror the social and bodily pressures historically placed on women, allowing the material itself to function as a visual record of embodied memory. The nylons retain traces of wear, movement, and lived experience, transforming the surface into a space where private narrative and cultural expectation converge.

Organized into conceptual chapters including In Her Shoes and Female Gaze, Ripping the Seams operates as a living archive rather than a closed series. I approach the work as an unfolding body of research that continues to evolve alongside shifting cultural conversations and personal discoveries. This open structure reflects the persistence of the questions that drive my practice, particularly those surrounding gender, visibility, performance, and agency.

Through abstraction, repetition, and restraint, I reclaim materials often dismissed as fragile or disposable and reposition them as vessels of resistance and remembrance. Hosiery, historically associated with restriction and discipline, becomes an expressive language through which I explore identity, cultural expectation, and autonomy. Ripping the Seams ultimately asks what it means to inhabit a body shaped by inherited narratives and how reclaiming material can become an act of authorship and liberation.