Current Exhibitions

1878 Gallery
March 2 - May 26, 2024

Annie Arnold
Tourist, Tour-est

Tourist, Tour-est is an exhibition of embroidered works on canvas and a slide show created by Austin-based artist, Annie Arnold. These new works humorously consider how social media and our attention economy is influencing how we approach and document our travel. In Arnold’s new body of work, she cross-stitches found text from aspirational globetrotting experiences and displays them as homemade diplomas and certificates made with raw, unstretched canvas, and trim that references varsity letter jackets. Using this analog method of self-display (hanging one’s degree on the wall), Arnold plays with ideas about credentials and accolades, and jokingly highlights the competition and comparison aspects of our conversations about visiting other places. The exhibition also includes a series of new merit badges, an ongoing body of work where Arnold designs and produces embroidered patches based on peoples’ posted social media pictures. 

In addition to the exhibition, Arnold has partnered with the Visit Galveston to create 7 new merit badges related to Galveston tourism specifically, which will also be on display in this exhibition.  

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Brown Foundation Gallery
March 2 - May 26, 2024

Elizabeth Chiles
THE WILD NEARBY

THE WILD NEARBY is an exhibition that continues Elizabeth Chiles’ exploration into the power of plants. The work celebrates the way nature prevails in the corners of the encroaching, built environment and the respite their presence offers. As wild spaces become mapped, inventoried, and shaped by humans, Chiles celebrates the ways nature shapes us and resists the encroaching pavement. Her work is a collaboration in dialogue with plants she encounters and reflects on how we are shaped by being in nature, and how we in turn, shape nature. Through photographic collages of plants she encounters in her daily interactions, Chiles creates feathery, animal-like tapestries that celebrate the textures and layering of plant foliage. Several works are hung loose on dowels, mirroring a hanging method often used with textiles. Her process mirrors the process plants undertake to draw energy from light, using the camera to process and explore the perception of physical and subjective worlds.

This exhibitions is presented as a Participating Space in the FotoFest 2024 Biennial.

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