!! OMG, a Q&A with photographic fiber-based artist Kyle Meyer !!

I first met the artist Kyle Meyer in the spring of 2022 in New York City. A friend of mine had posted on Instagram about a must-see artistic happening in Greenwich Village: Meyer had “wrapped” an enormous amount of fabric around the interior of an empty 19th century carriage house that was about to be demolished, and dripped dye of all different colors on it.

After arriving at the address Meyer provided to me through DM and texting his number, the artist bounded out from the building and began giving a tour of the space—which was now a phenomenal display of hues and textures (informed by whatever structural elements, such as a fireplace, was behind the fabric). Completely gobsmacked by the gorgeously transformed interior, I had to know more about this creative and what compels him to keep innovating his practice.

Prior to this project, Meyer had explored the connection between photography and fiber arts through a number of works, perhaps the most striking of which are the pieces in Interwoven. Here, Meyer photographed gay men he had befriended while living in Swaziland, a country with a hyper-masculine culture and where homosexuality is illegal. Meyer fashioned head wraps—typically worn by women—for his subjects, and after their image was made, he utilized the skills he was acquiring through a local textile apprenticeship to weave these photos into large-scale textile art pieces.

More recently, Meyer collaborated with Willie Norris, who in addition to helming an eponymous label is also the design director at Outlier. In the brand’s seasonal collection reveal this past September, two outfits featuring the dynamic dye work of Meyer appeared—and your spring wardrobe won’t be the same without it.

Meyer, who spends summers on Fire Island, has also made use of its surroundings (another part of his practice sees him burying pieces of fabric to discover how the land modifies it) and in other instances, its inhabitants to develop an aura reading-esque assemblage of pieces. For this, willing subjects select a series of colors from question prompts and are then shrouded in fabric and coated in those colors. The fabric is eventually cut and woven into an abstruse work of art.

“They’re somewhat portraits,” Meyer muses. “Portraits of people who have asked to participate in this work. I’m not soliciting participation. I could never just say, ‘I want to dye you’ – someone has to be compelled and want to do it, because it’s an intense and intimate process.”

Given the temporal and varied expanse of his work, I was excited to speak with Meyer about the Outlier collaboration, and what it’s like living and working on Fire Island.

Read the full Q&A after the jump!

Let’s start by talking about your collaboration with Willie Norris. How did that come about?

I find Willie’s work to be completely on point with the way that I think about gay issues. I was following what she was doing with Outlier, and I’m such a huge fan what Willie’s doing on her own—especially the t-shirts that say: “What exactly is heterosexuality and what causes it?” and other phrases. When we met years ago through mutual friends, she was like, “I’m completely over the moon with what you’re doing.” And I said I’d love to collaborate. And then time passed.

She reached out to me in the beginning of the summer and asked if I would be interested in working on something; it was my first time collaborating with someone dyeing textiles and using it for actual clothing. She sent me the fabric and said I could do whatever I wanted.

I spent three weeks with the fabric before I even started to dye it—it’s a completely different texture and heavier weight material than what I was used to working with. I did a lot of swatch tests to understand how the color was going to hit, and then I chose 16 colors and went from there, dyeing over the course of two-and-a-half days.

And you were working on this while you were living on Fire Island?

Yeah, I’ve been living there for the last few summers and I’m pretty entrenched there. Primarily, what I’m doing while I’m there is dyeing fabric, and working off of ideas that just keep coming up through being a part of the community. For Pines Party, which is a big fundraiser and circuit party, I did a 40-foot tunnel installation. And then I did stuff for Boffo, which is one of the art residencies there.

Gradually people would start to say, I’m throwing a party—would you me give textiles for it? So, I’m always doing things for the community while doing my own work out there.

Tell me more about that personal work.

The major project is portraits of different people. After they’ve agreed to collaborate, I sit down with them and show them a dye chart used in conjunction to the conversation that I’ll have with them. The questions include ‘What’s your favorite color?’ And they’ll choose one. And then I ask, ‘What is your most disliked color?’ So they’ll choose that. ‘Who are you closest with in your family? Give them a color.’ ‘How are you feeling right now?’ Then it goes into questions like, ‘What is the earliest trauma that you can remember?’

It’s usually an hour-long conversation and it’s meant to be spontaneous; one question can really spur another. But ultimately, the sixteen colors someone chooses are making up this person’s aura at that moment. I go on to mix the colors, which takes some time, and then they lay on top of a blow-up mattress that has a piece of fabric on it, and then I cover them with wet fabric. Then the next questions I ask them are, ‘What color do you want your body to be?’ ‘Where would you like yourself to be seen?’ Someone once told me they wanted to be under the sea. It could be anywhere! Some people say I want to be in the woods, and I ask what season it is in those woods. And is it sunrise, or the middle of the day? I’m trying to get more information about where they are in their life at that moment.

And then I start dyeing the fabric. Everything is really abstracted but ultimately, it’s a shroud of the body at that time. I’m covering them and getting this documentation of the depth of the body, which is never going to be at the same stature. The fabric is tightly bound in order to get as perfect a representation of the body as can be. I’m getting the DNA of the moment. Not only a print, but also an imprint.

What do people say about going through the process?

That it’s very intimate. Some people feel that it’s like a rebirth. Some people are quite emotional because the questions are very in-depth and can be triggering. And ultimately, I want them to be okay while the dyeing is taking place. It’s about 45 minutes of not moving.

Would you ever revisit doing another portrait of any of them? 

I have, with the first person that did this work with me. His name is Eliott, and he’s really the person who spurred this project on. I was having a very emotional summer last year and felt very lost and didn’t know what to do. I had a lot of ideas but didn’t know where to focus my attention.

He did a Tarot reading for me, and he was asking about my work and it came to a point where he said I was being too cagey and not opening up enough. Once I let that barrier go, I said that I had the idea for the portraits and he offered to help me. I said, you’d be willing to have dye thrown all over you? And he responded, of course!

It sounds amazing, and I love seeing how the themes that have appeared in your work over time have diverged, but that there’s also a sense of dots connecting with all that you do.

Everything’s really starting to make sense. I have a huge grasp on where I am right now, and how things can continuously be tweaked and become something different, but ultimately be the same.

—Q&A by Odessa Paloma Parker (@odessapaloma)