The view into Cindy Sherman’s studio via Zoom paints a portrait of one of the greatest artists of our time, in lockdown. She’s spent much of the past year ensconced at her home in a sleepy corner of East Hampton, New York state, with her boyfriend and his dog. Behind her, suspension training straps hang from the ceiling and a yoga mat is on the floor. In the corner of the frame, a potter’s wheel is just about visible — lately, Sherman has been satisfying a long-term itch to work with her hands and experiment with the medium of clay, something tangible in a world where the virtual feels indistinguishable from reality.

Sherman’s foray into ceramics is congruent with the creative direction she was taking before the pandemic. Since 2019, alongside major retrospectives at institutions such as London’s National Portrait Gallery and Paris’s Fondation Louis Vuitton, she’s been turning the images she posted on her Instagram into tapestries. These are the first non-photographic works she’s created in a career spanning more than 40 years, and nine of them are now on display at Sprüth Magers gallery in Los Angeles.

The textiles, which are made from fibres including cotton, wool, acrylic and polyester, were produced in Belgium in tribute to the country’s centuries-old weaving traditions. Sherman assumes a different character in each tapestry, transforming herself through clothes, accessories, eye and hair colour; through inhabiting different genders and manipulating her facial features. 

These chameleon-like traits are, Sherman says, an act of erasure of self rather than a revealing of hidden fantasies, which viewers often project on to her work. In doing so, what perhaps also gets lost is the joy the 67-year-old gets out of creating new characters, as she explains: “I like seeing how far I can get from what’s familiar; it’s just fun, always has been — ever since I was a kid.”

When did you first get the idea to make tapestries?

“I originally looked into the idea about 12 years ago. I made some samples with a company in California — the quality was fine, but I didn’t like the way it looked. The image was a full figure so you lost all the detail; you couldn’t get a sense of the person’s face at all. It was just a bunch of stitches. I remember thinking then it would work really well as close-ups.”

How did the process evolve?

“I couldn’t put the thought aside. I had all these Instagram images that I liked, but I didn’t know what to do with them. They didn’t work as [large scale] photographs because they were all taken on a phone or iPad. The transition to tapestry worked really well because it’s like an old-fashioned form of pixelating — everything meshed together nicely.”

What have you come to like about textiles and clothing as a means of self-expression?

“Textiles I like for their tactility. Tapestries specifically have a three-dimensional quality, just looking at the range of skin tones and the way it builds up over the course [of it being made]. It looks very topographical; not like skin after a while; abstract almost. Clothing is a whole other story. There are so many ways fashion can be expressive and exciting.”

You’ve spent most of the past year in the country. Do you miss New York or has it made you rethink how you want to live your life?

“In the country, there are actually more distractions, happy distractions like in the summer when the weather’s warmer, you can go cycling or do gardening. Of course, I’ve really got into baking a lot and so I’ve [developed] this impulsive feeling like, ‘Oh, I must make more sourdough starter.’”

“But I don’t know if I would want to be out here full-time. It would be really hard to make the choice to give up what the city has to offer. They both balance out each other in a nice way.”

Your practice is pretty self-sufficient in that you use yourself as a canvas, but do you ever get lonely?

“I’m a loner so it doesn’t really bother me. Right now, I miss my friends and family, but we keep in touch through email, texts and sometimes Zoom or FaceTime. But I don’t miss the dinners and gallery openings as much as some people.”