Skye Ferrante Studio

St. Tropez Scene in one wire, including sunflower motif frame. The collector said he wanted it framed, so I started with the frame; the picture followed, until I finished on my signature in the clouds. I began on a sunflower in the lower left corner, for anyone looking. SF For commission inquiries dm me or email [email protected] Photos by @chelseahotelportraits #sttropez #continuouswire #onewire #sculpture #landscapes #seascape #cityscape #art #thehiddenroom #skyeferrante #manofwire

Portrait of Tansy in the Hotel Chelsea, room 629 20 gauge continuous black wire, on canvas Framed by Ricardo Pauli of @pauliframes Premiered 24 October 2024 at the National Portrait Gallery, The Portrait by Richard Corrigan, for American Express Experiences. @americanexpressuk @loysedepury @manofwire with special thanks to @apo_taddia @tansyburlesque and @chelseahotelportraits @skyeferrantestudio

“The Del Tapestry” for the Hotel Del Coronado, 1888 Sculpted June 2025 at the Hotel Del Coronado, grand reopening 18 June 2025. Aluminum armature wire, continuous. 64 x 100” By Skye Ferrante Special thanks to @johnctolbert and the team at the Del, voted best US hotel of 2025, Rolling Stone Magazine. @rollingstone Musical guest: @chaycebeckhammusic

Burlesque, by pure happenstance—of sculpting nak*d people— has become a big part of my life. It began with @headmistressjo “Jo Boobs” who first sat for a portrait with me in her office at the headmistress of the New York School Burlesque, in the basement of the old Slipper Room. SF Burlesque 13” Aluminium wire with black powdercoat, continuous 2025 Skye Ferrante . . . .

Madeline 4/11/25 It had been years since our last portrait; her hair shorter, by a lot, in room 415 of the Chelsea hotel. We had both changed, considerably, through our unchanged routines, of bending metal and dancing go-go, respectively. The absence of pressure, this time, came with the choice I didn’t make, this time, for the pose that Madeline would take upon my green chair over coffee would be in street clothes, minus the socks, which I requested to be removed. At least, some toes, I thought, would be nice, for what are socks to sculpt? I had her high-waisted vintage jeans to deal with, to begin, her curling long hair I’d never seen before, in person, and her gap tooth, or teeth, for it takes two to make a gap—and with a twist, and then again, there it was. I don’t normally sculpt teeth in wire as they tend to look silly and better suited to crayons in the hands of small children. Of course, it was this gap I loved the most about her face, but only as it held the center with the dimple in her chin. Had it been a nude, as it was in the vortex on 23rd Street, I would have been all nerves, I know now, to match her own, if there were any, but mostly from the pressure to get the lines right, and the right lines; for nude lines are known lines, versus the abstract of her creasing jeans, or the shirt cinched at her waist. I used to think nude lines were more difficult, for their simplicity, but they were lazy to me now. “Give me drapery,” I say, “and thank you, Maddie.” SF . . . . Kindly show the 👁️ if you are reading #wordsandwire #portraiture #artwriting #skyeferrante #sculpture #newyork #chelseahotel #hotelchelsea #continuousline #onewire #artstories

One-wire sculpture commission for @vincecamuto #wonderbloomhaze 72x44” aluminum wire, continuous. 2025

Latest Art Nouveau-style artwork for @vincecamuto and @parlux_ltd 72 x 44 “ aluminum wire, continuous. 2025 Wonderbloom Haze perfume launch. April 8, 2025

2/2 The last portrait sitting together was in my room with the bay window and brown shutters that opened to the neon ‘E’ of the hotel Chelsea. The light of which, a blueish-white of which, was countered by the warmth of orange and red bulbs. It was determined that everyone looked better in the red and orange light and served me well in the naked hour—which often stretched to three, and while my sculpting time was getting faster, I used the lower light to slow me down, and even went so far as to remove my glasses. In losing sight I’d close my eyes to find the better feel, between my fingertips and wire. It was a purposeful approach; a footnote for the academics of artist process, about the New York sculptor in their ‘light’s out period’ in their invented language of my own words, “…I found myself closing my eyes more oftenly with the models, just to see what I couldn’t see, and perhaps eventually I could sculpt entirely by feel, until abandoning this sense too; I’d find the contours by their words alone, in a crumbling cookie’s path of scattered nuts, in bits of almond, hazel and wal…” SF (2/2) ….. Kindly show the 👁️ if you are reading. ….. Partial portrait of @madamebrassiere

I ate the whole cookie, like an idiot. I never eat the whole cookie; knowing one bite of a cookie can kill me. The wrong cookie, that is. And this was the wrong cookie. “I have a peanut allergy, myself,” she said, “and salmon—it’s the only fish I can’t eat. But I used to be allergic to all of seafood…” I recalled reading the evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond in the scientific magazines I borrowed from the dentists offices of my youth, who made one confident assertion that there was no such thing as a ‘fish.’ ‘And is salmon really a seafood?’ I asked myself to the model in my head, who was fully clothed, who was now undressing in reality, soon to find a pose upon the new red couch. Moments earlier I plunged a shot of epinephrin in my thigh, before failing to expel the fatal cookie by other means. She was mortified, having read the ingredients, but somehow missing the three words that meant the world to me—WALNUTS, HAZELNUTS, ALMONDS—and still worse, I had missed them too. I was due for a new prescription, had been misreading labels and making typos-more-than-usual for months. The shot worked. She asked if I wanted to postpone the portrait sitting, but I was eager to put another notch in the new couch Professor Bradley had found for me—a replacement of the previous ‘couch of a thousand nudes,’ not to be confused with the couch of a thousand org*sms, which wasn’t mine, in the Chelsea Hotel—and I was a professional—I finish things—and it wouldn’t be the first time I’d sculpted on a dose of epinephrine. The first time was in Paris with Yaëlle, but in her case I had poisoned myself, at a Libonais, in le Marais. Perhaps I needed a new prescription for my hindsight too; for to be safe, I should avoid dessert of any kind when eating out—unless we’re speaking of a certain pain perdu, which is to die for, and I would, I imagined in the darkness of my head, but only if it came with room service, with the professor, in an unmade bed… SF (1/2) continued. ….. Kindly show the 👁️ if you are reading ….. 3 Partial Portraits with @madamebrassiere …..

Ricardo Pauli is, bar none, the best framer in the universe. And I don’t just say this because he collects my art, or grinds me Peruvian coffee to a perfect drip on the mornings I make my way up to the industrial park on Sunbeam Road in North Acton to talk art and how we’ve been, now coming close to twenty years. This simple exchange, and to watch him carefully wrap the frames, is what I cherish most in every London trip. They don’t come better. SF Portrait of Iris, in two parts. The King’s Road, Chelsea, London, 2024. @irisinlatex Frames by @pauliframes

Floating Floral Tapestry in the style of Art Nouveau. Sculpted in Paris, April of 2023 for Sarah Newell (@redsn76 ) who made it her desk. A first of many more floating tapestries to come. Beautiful collab Sarah! SF

… A fly lighted on Miss Velvetina’s very long calf which I’d mistook for a thigh, which wasn’t so unusual for me with the long ones, whose legs I’d have to pretzelate to find the angles I could sculpt to. I tended toward acute. “Go on and swat it!” she said. I was conscious of the dilemma; her perceived one and mine: She didn’t want to break pose. Posers rarely do, even when I tell them it’s okay. “It’s okay to move—really—if you’re in the slightest bit of pain, unpretzelate yourself, please!” Lou Lou who posed for me a few days later on the same cat-clawed couch of a thousand org*sms told me she liked the pain of holding an uncomfortable pose. “But they’re not supposed to be uncomfortable,” I protested, while making a note to please her in the future. Now, the fly had jumped as I raised my swatting hand to another part of Velvetina’s body I could not mistake, and then to the other one, and it was here I caught myself in the present absurdity, picked up a pillow and brought it down as hard as I could, feeling instant regret at the death of a fly, at the model’s request, in a vampire’s lair, in what’s left of a hotel, in a vortex that exists for me behind a blood-red door. (2/2) SF ……………………. Kindly show the 👁️ if you are reading Portrait of Velvetina June 2024 4pm Hotel Chelsea Thank you @velvetinataylor for your pretzelations and conversations, and @chelseahotelportraits for the lost time. Oh, and @loulou_dvil for holding it. #sculpture #thehiddenroom #wordsandwire #portraitstories #artwriting #realnewyork #behindthereddoor #continuouswire #hotelchelsea #chelseahotel #vortex