Some people put their old dresses in storage; artist E. V. Day blows them up. In her continuing installation series, called "Exploding Couture," Day creates the impression, just as the name suggests, that viewers are looking at a dress in mid explosion. Using an elaborate system composed of suspended monofilaments, Day sustains an imaginary moment in time just after a taffeta ballgown has exploded, creating the impression that hundreds of pieces of the dress—from sequins to tattered tulle—are being propelled outward by the force of the blast. "It's not a piece about someone violently destroying a dress," says Day, "but rather something orgasmic—a celebratory expansion of energy." Artist Charles Beyer likens the energy of the work to Bernini’s Ecstacy of St. Teresa because, he says, it mimics a preserved moment of rapture. Previous to the explosion series, Day, who completed her graduate studies at Yale, worked with surfers' wet suits, reassembling them into new "second skins" for imaginary otherworldly creatures. Her latest pieces can be seen through November 6 at Track 16 in Santa Monica, California.