In "soft-cœur", Elena Stonaker presents a dream-world built on soft materials and illusive truths—a maximalist, hyper-feminine ecosystem blending the bodies of women with wildly growing botanicals. Laborious hand stitched plush sculptures, beaded forms, and wall-based works open like artifacts from a personal mythology- devotional in nature without disclosing to whom. The works’ cœur—“heart” in French—is less about sentiment than strategy. Here, softness is not a weakness, but a carefully crafted tool used to excavate into uncomfortable uncertainties transmuting darkness into childlike curiosity and whimsy.
