Haw Contemporary is pleased to present MABELMADE, an exhibition of work by Mabel Johnson. Spanning the entire first floor of the gallery, the exhibition features garments and fiber-based forms shaped through hand pleating, embroidery, piecing, and repurposed textiles.

At a moment when institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art are reframing fashion as a living archive, and recent films such as Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things have pushed costume further toward sculptural, expressive form, Mabel’s work engages this broader shift while remaining largely self-defined, emerging from her own sustained exploration of garment construction, material, and transformation. Her garments do not simply reference clothing. They function as objects that carry memory, structure, and transformation, positioned between wearable form and sculpture.

A graduating senior at the Kansas City Art Institute, Mabel has already established an extraordinary national presence, selling hundreds of distinctive garments, from couture to everyday pieces, and receiving multiple national and regional awards.

STATEMENT

This exhibition, Mabemade, showcases my work in Fiber throughout my time at the Kansas City Art Institute. It reflects the quiet power of transformation. I first learned this as I sat beside my mom, watching her turn scraps of old curtains, bedsheets, and tablecloths into something entirely new. Mabelmade began when I was fifteen with a pattern I created myself, which has since evolved into new silhouettes, colors, and forms. School has taught me to see clothing not just as wearable, but as a medium for sculptural expression, guiding me to explore volume and material in new ways. In this show, that evolution is visible through pleats, hand-stitching, and patchwork. Each garment is a collage of the things I am drawn to. Colors seen within my everyday life, paintings on my wall, illustrations from books- pieced together into silhouettes that transform the familiar into something entirely new. Echoes of historical costume surface in the work, shaping forms that move and shift. Each piece in this show carries fragments of the past into the living rhythm of the present.