Carly Owens Weiss is an interdisciplinary artist based in Colorado. She received her BAD in Art
+ Design from North Carolina State University and studied crewelwork and goldwork hand
embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework in the United Kingdom. In her current work, Carly
uses hand embroidery, painting and soft sculpture to confront contemporary issues of
womanhood and expectations of gender through a personal and symbolic lens. As an artist, she
is interested in the violence of contrasts and navigating the feelings that arise when the familiar
or mundane is juxtaposed with something unusual or irrational. The tensions between comedy
and tragedy, femininity and masculinity and seduction and repulsion greatly informs her work. In
her pieces, Carly draws parallels between objects, the body and the experiences lived within it
to create contemporary vanitas imagery. Often her work depicts temporal moments, leaving the
viewer in a state of stillness and anticipation of what has either passed or is yet to come.
Carly’s work has been featured in numerous publications including Architectural Digest
(Germany), Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, BUST Magazine, The American Scholar and Frankie
Magazine. She has exhibited work in institutions such as the Museum of Arts and Design (New
York, NY), the Bomb Factory Arts Foundation (London, UK), the Boulder Museum of
Contemporary Art (Boulder, CO) and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE).
She has recently completed residencies at John C. Campbell Folk School (Brasstown, NC),
Penland School of Craft (Penland, NC) and Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), where she
was awarded full fellowships. She will be a National Artist in Residence at Contemporary Craft
(Pittsburgh, PA) in 2025. She is an exhibiting artist with Tracey Morgan Gallery (Asheville, NC)
and her upcoming solo exhibition with the gallery opens November 15th, 2024.