Madi Diaz
Brooklyn NY
B. 2001 Miami FL
Engaged in a multifaceted exploration of fiber, sculpture, and activation, my art practice revolves around the central theme of seeking safety while navigating the dual roles of observer and participant. Materiality is central to this inquiry. I work with roving, underwear, lace, curtains, and other intimate or bodily materials because they hold contradictions: softness and restraint, sensuality and discomfort, protection and exposure. Through processes of manipulation, layering, and reconstruction, these materials become extensions of the body. They suggest shelter but also reveal the instability of that shelter.
Recently, my work has shifted from investigating voyeurism and the perverse conditions of being a woman toward questions of otherization through ancestry, citizenship, and inherited identity. I am interested in how people perceive, desire, fetishize, and consume difference, especially within intimate relationships. This has led me to consider the confusing space between objectification and agency, shame and pride, discomfort and erotic charge.
My work exists within these contradictions. It does not seek to resolve them but to hold them open. Through fiber, sculpture, and activation, I create forms that ask how the body protects itself, how it is made vulnerable, and how identity can become both a shelter and a site of exposure.
Exhibitions:
* Woven Narratives, 1st Generations, New York NY, 2026 UP NOW*** Strings Attached, Baltimore, MD, 2026
* Soft Power, New York NY, 2025
* Forging of a Woodshed, Middendorf Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2024
* It Feels Right to Me (Co-curator), Middendorf Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2024
* We Are Everywhere, Fox 2 Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2022-2023
* Soft spots, Hard places, Middendorf Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 2022
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