STATEMENT OF WORK

Aaron Cobbett Artist Statement
My work explores the material language of care, survival, and domestic labor. Using reclaimed textiles, broken ceramics, wood, and discarded household items, I build quilted and mosaic-clad structures that reference vernacular monuments, devotional objects, and the problem solving and agility required to exist as a working-class artist in New York.
As a survivor of the AIDS crisis and a longtime caregiver, quilting has provided both solace and a creative space grounded in the quiet rhythms of domestic life. The origins of these fabrics and materials carry embodied queer histories that coexist with the finished works, embedding each piece with layered meaning and memory. 
My practice reflects the intersection of physical labor and emotional endurance. I’m interested in the quiet, repetitive gestures that shape daily life—and how these accumulate over time into structures of resilience. The work draws on traditions of quilting, thrift, husbandry, and oral history, honoring the often overlooked (and unpaid) role of the caregiver in our society.
By wrapping monolithic forms—obelisks, pyramids, columns—long associated with conquest and permanence, I “blanket” traditional power structures while elevating the quiet grace of human care. Quilting becomes both softness and power, transforming august symbols of authority into monuments of care and survival as resistance.
This work continues a long arc in my practice: understanding survival not as a passive state but as an active, ongoing aesthetic and ethical stance. I’m interested in how beauty, repetition, and care can stitch together a record—one that honors lives not often memorialized, and insists that endurance itself is a form of art.