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Considering Mass and Density, TAC AIR Cycle 12 Final Exhibition

TAC AIR Cycle 12 Final Exhibition

September 13–26, 2021
Curated by: Isa Rodrigues and the Artists of Cycle 12
Artists:

Jessica Elena Aquino
Francisco echo Eraso
Clare Hu
Jeanne F Jalandoni
Ryan Scails
Elaine Shen
Emily Small
Elizabeth Tolson

Considering Mass and Density exhibition is presented in collaboration with The Vanderbilt Republic, with curatorial advisory, technical direction and lighting design by George Del Barrio. Photo Credits: Shawn Inglima

Considering Mass and Density features the works by the artists who participated in the 12th cycle of the Textile Arts Center’s Artist in Residence program.

For nine months, individually and collectively, the artists scoured the depths of ancestral knowledge to elucidate old technologies, comprehend their worlds, past and present, and develop a new criterion to inhabit their surroundings. They moved through time slowly, each thread building up, connecting, combining, and functioning as one. Throughout this time, making became a form of healing. 

In the gallery, a handwoven tarp hanging from the ceiling, shaped and held by harnesses, displays imagery from Hu’s life in Georgia, mended with patches and Lee’s Surrender overshot weave, used to question monolithic narratives of the U.S “South”. Scails’ canvas drawings and dressed sculptures examine structure and materiality and their relationship to the body, labor and care.  Modulated surfaces on quilted silk and cotton in Tolson’s work, invoke the passage of time, the concept of Space and its relationship with body cycles. Aquino’s large loom structure woven with wildflowers, cornhusks, and collected objects, offers solace from love and heartbreak and invites guests to share from their own experience. In Shen’s work, an installation of sculpted white and blue nets reflects on expressions of familial love and care and the paradox of safety and entrapment.  Jalandoni’s large scale figures combine oil painting with handmade and found textiles to celebrate and reclaim her Filipino American cultural identity in response to stereotypes created by US Imperialism. echo’s black and gold handwoven and felted textiles, reminiscent of popular Colombian garments interrogate the construction of national patrimony and cultural value. Tapestries, sculptures, and signs appear scattered throughout the exhibition signaling a near world end scenario as a means for Small to reflect on social and environmental changes, structures of safety, and grief.

A thread through the works in this exhibition emerges in the synchronized support systems ebbing and flowing through care. Each artist reaches into personal depths, navigating spaces beyond physicality. By manifesting through process, a facsimile of truth emerges - earlier forms peeking through transparent layers, fostering connections and relationships, like a palimpsest used again. 

Cover Photo: Clare Hu (detail)