A Solo Show at The Lionel Rombach Gallery

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I work with natural dyes with an admiration for the labor and craft of making that also mirrors the physical labor of motherhood. The process of painting and creating natural dyes is time consuming, meticulous, and repetitive. Those same qualities can be reflected in my slowness, patience, and intentionality that appears in my life as a mother to a young child. In this way, my art making process feathers into my identity as a caregiver and also becomes a ground for meditative reflection.

Within these actions, washing, ironing, cooking, straining, and stirring I find myself excavating and uncovering the knowledge from my maternal ancestry. These tasks trigger stories recounted by my mother and grandmother, weaving their ties into my artistic practice and thus into my navigation of motherhood. The acts of domestic labor uncover a way of ‘knowing’ that is not taught.

Tending to my practice has revealed to me a way of being that surpasses simply the physical reflection of my art and of my child. It goes beyond the color of their eyes and the shape of their hands, beyond the richness of the dyes and the marks I make. It culminates silently within consistent and generative labor.

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Written by : Emily Kray

Photographed by : Semoria Mosley