Illinois State University Wonsook Kim School of Art presents echo, a collection of work created by Master of Fine Arts graduate students Nicci Arnold and Peytin Fitzgerald. echo is the fifth exhibition featured at the Illinois State University Student Art Gallery within the Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA).
The exhibition is on view from September 13, 2021, through January 23, 2022. A public reception will be held on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 from 5 to 6 p.m.
Memories reverberate through our lives and our families, connecting us through time and space. They are a powerful and inescapable part of the human experience. In sharing memories, we extend their echoes beyond ourselves and into the world.
echo explores documentation of memory in excess throughout times of personal and societal turmoil.
Arnold’s work uses representational imagery of her surrounding objects and narrative to examine the processing of emotion. Fitzgerald’s abstract pillow forms and embroideries grasp at overwhelming sensations of memory, while managing trauma that can reside within the body. Although the artists’ methods of recording and recalling memory differ, both Arnold and Fitzgerald use pattern, detail, and the expansive media of printmaking to share and blend their individual experiences.
“With trauma, your brain and body choose when to hold onto a memory and when not to. These relations are repetitive in imagery and in motion throughout my work. While creating, I discovered space for shared trauma in underlying conversations between me and the bodies that have surrounded me throughout my life. In response, I offer memories and emotions in shape. Each one is tied to a specific sensation from events that have left a lasting impact on who I am today. While working, my goal is to look at ways to abstract these sensations in excess and imply that there was once a body present. I do so by conveying feelings of otherness, vulnerability, or disassociation from body and self.”—Peytin Fitzgerald
“In my work I focus on the spaces that surround me and the objects that inhabit those spaces. By translating documentation of my daily life into the language of woodcut, I preserve moments that tell a complex story of family, separation, and growth. The process of woodcut allows me to infuse each scene with an expressive quality through mark and pattern. The process of carving is highly therapeutic for me, a way to process and memorialize the journey my blended family continues to tread through a pandemic and multiple long-distance relationships. By highlighting these several scenes, I hone in on the moments that have felt most unsettling to me, which allows for deeper reflection on the times I’ve spent in solitude over the past year and a half.”—Nicci Arnold
The Student Art Gallery within the Central Illinois Regional Airport is a mission-central component of the Wonsook Kim School of Art at Illinois State University. The CIRA Student Art Gallery is located across from the main entryway inside the terminal building at 3201 East Empire Street, Bloomington. Gallery hours are consistent with the operating hours of the airport. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
For more information, visit FineArts.IllinoisState.Edu/Airport-Gallery. To arrange a special accommodation, please contact Wonsook Kim School of Art at Art@IllinoisState.edu or (309) 438-5622. Follow Wonsook Kim School of Art on Facebook and Instagram.
