Armed with just needle and thread, award-winning artists Niki Johnson and Melissa Farris explore -- and expound upon -- ideas of gender, sexuality, sociology and politics in "Moral Fiber," a two-woman show at Material which opens tonight.

The 30-year old Johnson and 25-year old Farris, both 2008 graduates of the University of Memphis, are no strangers to sewing.

Farris' mother works as a costumer in the film industry. Johnson's mother also sews. Likely neither parent could have predicted this use of mundane and innocuous materials like cotton, lace and embroidery thread in work that is clever and often overtly sexual.

Farris, who received the 2007 "Most Popular Award" from contemporary arts organization Lantana Projects, made an untitled portrait of her nearly nude boyfriend, Jonathan McCarter, from fabric appliquéd onto a pre-existing quilt. "I come from a very wonderful, liberal family, but my mother has said, 'I really love this, but can't you make people with clothes?'" Farris said.

"I like the weird little clues that fabric can give you about gender, and I like bringing sexuality into the equation."

Farris also combined fiber art, found images and painting to create a trio of shadowboxes that make a stylized peep show. Cloth curtains that frame the boxes open to reveal a series of watercolors depicting homoerotic scenes.

Farris' work is perfectly balanced by Johnson's triptych of tiny needlepoint pictures that are glued to the bottom of fluted cupcake tins. The needlepoint emphasizes a part of the female anatomy, derived, says Johnson, from 1970s-era Playboy magazine images.

"It's a play on oral fixations," says Johnson, who explored similar themes for her senior thesis, which she entitled "The Great American Bake-Off."

With "Old Yeller," Johnson, a two-time winner of the University of Memphis Annual Juried Student Exhibitions Undergraduate Award, deviates from the exhibition's sexual overtones to focus on pop culture icon Donald Trump, depicted larger-than-life in 50 yards of cotton layered with Heat N'Bond and a plastic Dupont fabric stiffener.

"Moving to the South, I'm fascinated by the whole cotton thing," says Johnson, who moved to Memphis from San Francisco three years ago.

While they aren't the only two artists using needlework, a traditionally female craft, to examine modern sexual motifs (Google "Tattoo Baby Doll Project" or pick up a copy of Julie Jackson's Subversive Cross Stitch), Farris and Johnson push boundaries to the fever pitch exploited by currently-in-vogue painter John Currin or Hustler founder Larry Flynt. The show is not for children or the faint-of-heart.

Farris and Johnson are concerned about whether their peers will recognize fiber craft as a valid art form.

"The fine arts community might wonder, 'Is this craft? Is it functional?' And crafters are going to cry when they see what we've done with appliqué," Johnson says. "I believe that the medium helps direct the message. Fabric is just as applicable and valuable as paper."

Moral Fiber

Work by Niki Johnson and Melissa Farris, opens tonight from 6-8 p.m. Up through Aug. 29 at Material, 2553 Broad Ave.