Shared Ground: Sarita Westrup & Lewis Prosser

“Basketry is unpredictable,” writes critic and historian Janet Koplos in her essay “Opposites Connect,” for the exhibition Shared Ground, now on view at Superhouse. Basketry can encompass numerous materials from metallic wires to textiles to reeds; it can be basically any shape, size, open or closed, and there is no defining principle for what defines a basket other than, as Koplos notes, “it usually involves interlacing or assembly of lightweight materials to make a form that retains interior space.” While many people might think of basketry and see images of a bread basket at their grandparent’s dinner table, or something similar, baskets have come a long way in contemporary craft and art, pushing aside its functional uses and repositioning itself as an unexpected form of sculpture and beauty.

This was seen in a tangible way with The Basket Club Instagram, which emerged during the pandemic as a source of visual delight that also opened up a new creative outlet for artists and makers excited by a new challenge. Through that project we were witness (and still are) to an incredible range of ideas around what basketmaking can be, can represent, can imagine.

Shared Ground features a selection of work by Sarita Westrup and Lewis Prosser, the first time their work has been paired together. It was the gallery’s idea to bring the two artists together, saying, “While this is the first time we’re showing their work together, we had been in conversation with both artists for some time. As those discussions developed, it became increasingly clear that, despite the differences in their practices, there were shared sensibilities that felt compelling to place in dialogue. Both artists engage deeply with place in their work—Lewis through the British Isles and Sarita through the Texas borderlands—and each uses traditional basketry techniques in unconventional ways, whether through Lewis’s engagement with performance or Sarita’s looping and closed forms. A two-artist exhibition felt like a strong way to allow those conversations to unfold in the space, and that became the genesis of Shared Ground.”  Westrup is a Mexican-American artist living in the borderlands of South Texas, who uses traditional basketry and dyeing techniques such as cochineal-dyed reeds in her experimental works that take different forms including long tubular shapes, geometry or body parts. Prosser is based in Wales and he draws on the cultural traditions and techniques of the British Isles and merges that with a sense of playful improvisation, performance and humour. “In dialogue, their practices reveal weaving as a living knowledge system, rooted yet restless, ceremonial yet unconventional.”

Pops of orange and pink play off the intimate exhibition. Many of Westrup’s pieces are suspended or coiled from the wall, Prosser’s gather around the central floor space. The work converses with each other in a natural way. The subtle angles, twists and expressive shapes reveal both artists’ distinctly unique approach to their materials and to basketry in general. Shared Ground is on view at Superhouse Gallery in New York through February 21, 2026.

Superhouse

Sarita Westrup

Lewis Prosser