Genevieve Gaignard’s work lives in layers of history, identity, image, and material. Working across photography, collage, sculpture, and installation, she builds worlds that feel intimate and theatrical at once, often using vintage props, wallpaper, and found imagery. Her examination of race, femininity, and American culture is informed and inspired by her own biracial experience. Her practice draws power from contrast: humor and discomfort, beauty and critique, past and present. The studio is where those tensions gather and take shape.
Unlike artists who search for the “perfect” workspace, Gaignard doesn’t demand much from a studio at all. Spaces tend to find her, not the other way around. Her most recent studio offered more room than she’s had in years, but with that space comes new challenges — how easily it can turn into storage, how quickly things can accumulate. Lately, she’s been thinking about the opposite impulse: how to work more compactly, how to shape herself to the space instead of shaping the space around her.
