Sei-kashe M'pfunya, There is no – thing dead here, acrylic paintings, 2021
Installation view of works by Ise Henriques Sharp, ink on paper, 2021
Ise Henriques Sharp, ink on paper, 2021
Tarini Gandhi, graphite on paper, 2021
Tarini Gandhi, graphite on paper and screen prints, 2021
May 6- June 6, 2021
Virtual exhibition now live @ Now We Must Depart Again
Making art in a pandemic. The very statement feels out of step and a bit absurd. We artists depend on the implicit social contract of making things for others. And while we may work in isolation, we work tethered to particular audiences. We depend on exhibition spaces being shared ones in order to look and experience and celebrate the stories and representations imagined.
Like many things this year, the terms have been radically reshaped. All of the normal conventions that lend energy and momentum to our lives have become thinned down or may have disappeared by the constraints of the pandemic. It has been a painful and disruptive year and against these realities, each Senior has had to find a path forward – to go inward and build a new set of guideposts.
Not surprisingly, the effects of the past year have seeped into the work of these Seniors. Themes of isolation, interiority and connectedness all emerge as core concerns. Isolation and interiority appear as psychic and mental frameworks as much as literal ones of body and architecture. Connectedness takes the form of identity and place as well as memory and the spiritual. Our Seniors have also shown that despite the difficulties of this year, our need for beauty, mystery, and story-telling remain very much intact.
I hope you enjoy their show Now We Must Depart Again as much as I have enjoyed working with them.
Michael O’Malley
Professor of Art
Special thanks to Ian Byers-Gamber for taking installation photographs of the exhibition.