Linda Friedman Schmidt
Unhooking, 2025
Mixed Media
40x24x2 inches
 
“Unhooking” by Linda Friedman Schmidt uses textiles as a form of feminist dissent, as a mode of rebellion and resistance to control. It explores the artist’s struggle for freedom from constraints; it examines issues of the body and feminine experience. Multicolored frayed fabrics and layered surfaces blur the boundary between skin and clothing, touch on race, fashion, and propriety. The artist is unhooking from fear, unhooking from bias, unhooking from uncomfortable clothing and circumstances, unhooking from the past, unhooking from the need to conform, unhooking from perfectionism in order to heal. She is letting herself off the hook, becoming free, and finding joy.