Aubrié Costello "WANT YOU NOW"

Aubrié Costello "WANT YOU NOW" 2025

Mixed Media: Hand-cut + hand-sewn silk graffiti flag, ripped reclaimed sun-bleached dupioni silk, chiffon, thread, + dressmakers pins
Dimensions 14 x 24
Unique

AUBRIÉ COSTELLO is a visual artist, director, writer, and curator of multimedia collaborations in Philadelphia, PA. Their collaborative projects amalgamate fiber art, photography, film, fashion, original music, literary/performance/installation art, and community care. They explore, depict and celebrate their creative collaborators’ unique experiences through varied media. They are co-creating artful resources and safe spaces for their community members to rediscover vulnerability, express themselves fully, and be seen with dignity. They chronicle the often unseen, intimate moments, and nuanced emotions experienced within our most personal relationships with self and others. The intention behind their work is to create experiences which encourage community engagement, interaction, self reflection, self-love, and thoughtful collaboration. Costello’s oeuvre is rooted in accessible, large-scale text-based fiber art installations called “silk graffiti" in public spaces. As a visual artist, Costello creates tangible fiber art objects and costumes featuring poignant silk graffiti text which reflects and conveys a particular, often shared, moment in time. The objects exist as props for collaborators to wear and interact with, then transform into curios which they later repurpose, reconfigure, and reutilize in site-specific installations and live experiences. Costello has expanded into the roles of creative director and film director, envisioning and producing multidisciplinary work, specifically film, performance, and literary projects. They invite creative contributors to infuse their craft(s) and perspective(s) into each collaboration. These works across art forms center the robust, vital, resonating queer stories of their collaborators, and further contextualize the silk words by investigating the meaning and impact of the text on the body and in space. Costello's work explores the tension between what’s kept private versus what’s shared publicly and investigates how, when our private emotions are revealed in safe spaces with care, transparency, and without shame, opportunities to more deeply understand ourselves, one another, and our interconnectedness present themselves. These understandings could yield mindful, holistic consideration and collective mutual care, resulting in a more honest, equitable, and abundant society. Costello's work surveys softness as resistance and softness as protest of the internalized hardening and desensitization we continue to learn and exhibit. Their work is an offering to explore the value and transformative power of vulnerability, softness, gentleness, and eroticism beyond only the sexual, and how each can act as a conduit for our collective healing from the consistent harm and trauma we’re navigating. Costello has exhibited their work extensively in Philadelphia and abroad, most notably at Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia City Hall, Fairmount Water Works, Philadelphia International Airport, International House University of Pennsylvania, Science History Institute, Moore College of Art & Design, Main Line Arts Center, Bucks County Community College Hicks Art Center Gallery, The James Oliver Gallery, Projects Gallery, in politically and socially charged exhibitions Truth To Power, Into Action and WE RISE in Philadelphia/Los Angeles/Chicago. Costello was a co-organizer of the 2017 citywide public art project, Signs Of Solidarity, and is a co-founder of anonymous public art curatorial collective Group X. Costello's work was featured in all 10 episodes of SMILF S2 on Showtime. Their self-published SOFT Book is currently on view & stocked at Ulises, with 6 other renowned Stockists in Philadelphia. Their latest literary offering, the FEEL Deck, is featured in all suites and the AWAY Spa at W Philadelphia luxury hotel. In late March 2025, they will take over the Philadelphia Museum of Art with their ongoing collaborative multimedia inclusive/accessible project, THE EROTIC PROJECT. Made by predominantly queer artists & centering queer pleasure, intentional offerings from THE EROTIC PROJECT are carefully co-created for collective catharsis, healing, & liberation. Costello's work centers BIPOC AAPI LGBTQIA2S+ narratives within the collaborative safe spaces they mindfully build.

“This flag reads, "WANT YOU NOW" & is a collaboration with Mia Moretti who has a song of this same name. The vibrancy of the track inspired this work. There is a palpable & distinct queer/house pulse to Mia's production so I wanted to reflect that in this piece. The recycled, once loud now sun-bleached silk signifies our eternal ties back to nature. Silk is the strongest natural fiber, as strong as steel. Queer folks are like silk. Beautiful, resilient, & the most creative with what they have. I leave the sharp pins as a reminder of the ever-present pain that lives alongside all the beauty. I hope that's felt here. I'm committed to centering queer pleasure, catharsis, joy and expression at a time when queer ALAANA artists’ lives/livelihoods are being censored and threatened, with violent attempts of erasure.” - Aubrié Costello

Learn more about the exhibition on our website.