Aesthetics of Loss is a collection of work by eight artists who have experienced the recent loss of friends and family members. Their studios became places for processing grief and understanding the vacuum of losing loved ones either suddenly or over a long period of illness. Caregiving, memory, loss, and the ultimate mystery of death are explored through painting, printmaking, fibers, ceramics, photography, installation, and video.
Representing grief in artwork is an attempt at understanding death and there is no one way to do it. Some artists utilize objects and clothing left behind by their loved ones and transform them into artworks, and others use ritual and natural materials as memorial or commemorative actions of grief and acceptance. In the work of artists in this exhibition, art is an unconscious survival barrier, a scrim that references something unimaginable in oblique, evocative, and moving ways.
Together, Aesthetics of Loss is a survey of artworks that is a mediation of grief, where no one work is like the other, but collectively the works offer the viewer a space for healing and acceptance of the inevitable.
Artists include EBTI, Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, Brianna L. Hernández, Linda b. Marcus, Nirmal Raja, Jaymee Harvey Willms, Cassidy Early and Anders Zanichkowsky.
Aesthetics of Loss will be on vite from July 11, 2023 to September 1, 2023. The artist receiption is July 22, 2023, 5:00pm to 7:00pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm with free admission.
Additional Programming:
July 22, 2023, 3:30-5:00pm: “Care Shower" performance by artists Anne Basting and Jessica Meuninck Ganger with guests.
August 6, 2023, 7:00pm-9:00pm: "for G" by Anders Zanichkowsky, a memorial & performance with a handwoven shroud and an audio piece addressing the artist's first love, who died of a drug addiction.
Please RSVP for "for G": https://www.eventbrite.com/e/for-g-tickets-675319909027
This exhibition is the second iteration of Aesthetics of Loss. The first exhibition was showcased at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago where it was well received and written about. The next segment will be at Catherine G. Murphy Gallery in Saint Paul Minnesota later this year.