Anchorhold: installation in the crypt, Washington DC

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, c. 1373,
Ed. Grace Warrack. Meuthen & Co. Ltd., thirteenth edition 1949
Lily, Kiki McGrath, charcoal, graphite, oil pastel, 5 x 7.5” 2023

November 1 - 30, 2023

Informed by ancient and contemporary spirituality, creative ritual and domestic labor, Anchorhold is a reimagined medieval chamber in the Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Visitors are invited to enter the solitary enclosure and explore contemplative practices in the cathedral crypt and library.

The installation is inspired by 14th century anchoress Julian of Norwich. She lived in a room attached to a church for twenty years and wrote Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest surviving English text by a woman. The project includes durational performances, a communal audio recording of Julian’s works, and responses to her mystical visions in an altered artist book. 

In early November the artist will be a continuous presence in the installation, Performing Alice for seven days. Like a servant to an anchoress, she will attend to visitors, engage in domestic labors, and protect the solitude of individuals inside the Anchorhold during Center opening hours: November 1-3, 6-7, 9-10 from 12 – 5 pm.

The Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage will offer self-directed contemplative and creative practices and ticketed events to celebrate the 650th anniversary of Julian’s mystical revelations. There is no Cathedral entry fee for worship and private prayer, including visitors to the Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Confirm weekly opening times on their Facebook page.

VODER: Abandoned Practices Institute

18-minute solos and trio performances by Rob Croll, Miles Erickson, Mike Casey Landini, Claire Lobenfeld, Kiki McGrath and Che Pai. Streamed on Lumpen TV from the Performance Room of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Genesis: an exhibition hosted by the Jewish Art Salon and Caravan

Gathering the Waters, collage, ink, acrylic, encaustic paint. 8 x 8”

Elevate at 21c, Chicago IL

Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the communities surrounding each 21c Museum Hotel. Elevate provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.

www.21cmuseumhotels.com/museum/exhibit/kiki-mcgrath-8hrs

Woman Made Gallery Feminist Biennial 2022 Awards

WomanMade Gallery, Chicago IL

CHICAGO ––Woman Made Gallery (WMG) is proud to present the The Feminist Biennial, juried by Ashley Wynn. It is a group exhibition featuring the artwork of 34 women and non-binary artists exploring the new age of feminism. As legendary historical moments, the first three waves of feminism are well theorized and widely known. The first emerged with women’s suffrage; the second propelled forward by the civil rights act and women’s sexual and financial freedom; and the third further defined by the rise of queer theory, racial justice and intersectionality within the feminist moment. Now speculating the fourth wave, which has yet to be theorized and is less understood, WMG asks what does it mean to be a feminist today?

At its core, feminism has been and continues to be a personal and collective reclamation of power in a patriarchal world that undervalues and devalues feminine-presenting expressions of self. It is a lived experience, a daily act, and held in community to make sense of the world through a feminist lens. WMG’s first Feminist Biennial, as an exhibition, seeks to provide a platform for marginalized voices to put forth artwork that explores feminist thought, action, art practices and lived experience in 2022.

In her juror’s statement, Ashley Wynn writes: “’Each work presents both a timeless and timely expression of the pluralism of feminism, a provocative amalgamation of intersectional pursuits of equality, liberation, and autonomy, upending preconceived ideologies of what it means to be a woman. The resultant conversation invites an active exploration into a broader spectrum of experiences and perspectives, dynamically opposing binary boundaries imposed upon genders and identification.”

Intimacies at MAPSpace

Enclosure alludes to domestic intimacies and physical confinement. Made of repurposed textiles, x-ray film, plastic sheeting, twine and acrylic paint on wood, this reversable sculpture presents two sides: folded bed clothes beneath a translucent cover, and on the reverse, ragged edges unlaced to reveal a glimpse of woven fabric. The title also refers to the practice of monastic enclosure and the brown, black and white robes worn by cloistered religious communities. Simultaneously hiding and revealing restraint, touch, and transparency, viewers are encouraged to take the piece off the wall and see both sides. 10 x 8 x 1”

Women's Work

Women's Work
Indianapolis Art Center
June 18, 2021–August 10, 2021
Women’s Work is a juried exhibition centered on gender and feminist politics. Historically, women have been excluded from the art world, from being kept out of academies and apprenticeships to being woefully underrepresented in galleries and museums today. Along with this, the art skills that were deemed feminine or appropriate for women, such as sewing, embroidery, or weaving, are dismissed as “just” crafts and hobbies. Highlighting female artists and intersectionality in femininity.

Free Punch and Pie

Emerging from a forever-altered landscape in 2021, the graduating MFA students at American University are proud to present Free Punch & Pie. This exhibition showcases artworks that investigate the artists’ intimate experiences with their personal biographies combined with more open understandings about the intersection of history, memory, place, power, and identity. Working within a range of media practices including mixed media, drawing, painting, photography, and performance, this group of artists reframes what it means to produce contemporary art in a world that has been faced with devastating loss, uncertainty, grief, and rebuilding on numerous levels. Together, they work to show that art does move forward and allows space for finding solace, hope, transformation, and inspiration from the knowns and unknowns of what life brings to us all.

Throughout this exhibition, each artist takes a unique approach to express their enthusiasm with processes of artmaking and create works that engage with positive reflection and care. There are several themes and issues that arise in their art such as the exploration of memories, emotions, and personal relationships through depicted objects and experiences, tracing patterns of domestic and spiritual labor, depicting the beauty contained within unspoken acts, and the creation of extraordinary moments from ordinary objects and environments. Others include combining the fantastical and realism to explore lived experiences and politics of white womanhood, humanity, and impulse, examining vulnerability in landscapes and bodies faced by trauma and commercial development, and engaging with humor through historical portraiture to call attention to present and past issues of masculinity, power, ego, and whiteness. Within all of these explorations, the artists reconfigure and confront what they experience, see, and feel that results in something new, imaginative, and beautiful. 

By Jessica Tackes

AU Studio Art MFA Thesis Exhibition

Just as we settle into the challenging intimacies and critical demands of graduate school, we find ourselves leaving this cocooned community and entering a world forever changed by 2020.The global pandemonium profoundly altered our lives and transformed our studio practices.The world needs time to change and reveal itself. Let’s relish the idea that art does not stop,celebrate our work, and share some Free Punch & Pie.

www.american.edu/cas/museum/2021/free-punch-and-pie.cfm

Prayer and Devotion: Franciscan Art, Franciscan Artists

Helicon

Kiki McGrath: Helicon and Jean Jinho Kim: The Space In-between
Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, February 9, 2018

In the abstract paintings of “Helicon,” also at Studio, D.C. artist Kiki McGrath contrasts forms that are hard-edged and geometric with ones that are soft and loose. The works on canvas are colorful, yet less striking than the large wall drawing that offers a similar juxtaposition in black and white. The black square at the piece’s center is flanked by freer gestures on both sides, and the spirals on the left diminish into lines that emulate the shape of a 3-D element: a set of hanging branches. Painted black, the wood resembles a brushstroke in midair, hinting that even the simplest jotting owes its essence to nature.

One House

The One House Project

The overriding principle of ArtWatch and The One House Project is a vision for a country where we are united as one people rather than divided against each other by race, gender, class, religion, or any other artificial means of defining “us” against “them.” It was first shown with 220 artists at the Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC in November, 2017. At BlackRock Center for the Arts in November 2019, participation expanded to over 300 artists.

The One House Project at BlackRock presents a heterogeneous collection of art from descendants of Native Americans, African slaves, Mayflower Pilgrims, Jewish Holocaust survivors, European indentured servants and every successive wave of immigration.

With over 50 countries of origin represented, a common shared narrative is the flight from persecution or extreme poverty, and the hope for a new chance in America. Quests for the American Dream that began over 400 years ago with the very first arrivals continue to this day. The house, covered by panels, makes a powerful visual statement of the strength of diversity and the common elements of our shared humanity.

www.artwatchdc.com/one-house

Irish Laundress
paint, collage and ink on panel
12 x 12'“

Artour-0 il MUST

Arial Roots

Kiki McGrath: Aerial Roots and Jean Jinho Kim: No Boundaries
Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, February 17, 2017

Swirls of green suggest the botanical origins of Kiki McGrath’s expressionist abstractions, but the local artist also has drawn on another source, examples of which are part of this Studio Gallery show. Alongside the paintings, “Aerial Roots” displays three sculptures inspired by ikebana — Japanese flower-arranging — and made by local devotees of the art form. These are large, burly and far from traditional. Rather than dainty flowers and grasses, the assemblages feature log-size branches and unnatural accents; one incorporates chunks of vine painted orange. With them, McGrath has installed a black rubber hose, coiled and hanging in midair. The shape of this gardening accessory echoes the spirals in the paintings and pays an amusing tribute to ikebana. The found-object sculpture is not flower-arranging, but it is an act of transformation, and that’s an fundamental theme of Japanese art.

International Contemporary Art Exhibition

Transformations

Kiki McGrath is an artist who works with loosely representational imagery and disjointed forms to explore complex ideas relating to history, religious practices and literature. Kiki’s works tend toward earthy, neutral colours and the use of traditional media such as acrylic, collage and graphite drawing. The artist’s recent series Transformations takes stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses as inspiration for its imagery. The series is primarily composed of wall-based works on paper that combine drawing and collage techniques. Through the presentation of fragmented bodies, images of mythical creatures and interesting, almost geometric line interventions, Kiki visually represents the bizarre and disorienting nature of the mythology.
By Dallas Jeffs

Amen: A Prayer for the World

Desert Mother
acrylic paint on fiberglass sculpture
60 x 20 “

Lo Spirito del Corpo