Location: UCF Art Gallery
EXHIBITION STATEMENT:
“Being at-home is a matter of how one feels or how one might fail to feel.” – Sara Ahmed
The conflicted sense of home is where this exhibition begins. Destabilizing the romanticized concept of home, this exhibition will challenge the representation of this ideology by exploring various facets of home across multiple planes of identity including culture, gender, and sexuality. In …no place like home the works will both physicalize and undercut domestic connotations, becoming an anti-monument that calls attention to its own unstable foundation – this idea of home as comfort or discomfort. Dedicated to such ideas of home, this exhibit will include works that stem from the artist’s personal childhood nostalgia and the unforgiving chokeholds such memories can create.
BIO // b. 1988
Tenee’ Hart is an ‘unconventional’ fiber installation artist pursuing themes of feminism that delve into topics of beauty, anatomy, and the inequality of women. Wrapped fibers, gushing forms, and the manipulation of the ‘everyday’ are crucial components within Hart’s works. Her abstract forms remain committed to an intriguing physicality that comes from palpable and intentional material usage. Hart hails from Virginia, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mary Washington in 2011. Later, Hart earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University, where she has been teaching, at the college level, since the completion of her degree in 2015. Hart is currently the Co-Head of the Online Distance Learning (ODL) program for FSU | Department of Art. Beyond her role as an educator, Hart is the sole Graduate Advisor + Coordinator for the Department of Art at Florida State University.
ARTIST STATEMENT // Tenee’ Hart
I am an ‘unconventional’ fiber installation artist pursuing themes of feminism that delve into topics of beauty, anatomy, and women’s inequality. I embed personal narratives through material context and nostalgic visual languages. Subverting the spectacle of decoration, I push the seductively beautiful towards the overwhelming artificial. Combining, recontextualizing, and reconfiguring disparate materials is my way of reconciling my role as a woman and challenging the societal expectations ingrained in us all.
Influenced by the artistic traditions such as craft, labor, and the act of making, I embrace these practices that are considered ‘the domestic’ or ‘women’s work’ as a form of empowerment and resistance to this long-held perception. There is evident interest in domestic materials, material culture, and what these tactile objects are capable of symbolizing. When considering their inherent properties and limitations, I liberate these household trappings’ intended use in favor of its’ aesthetic capacities. Through delicate and sometimes aggressive material manipulation, I aim to challenge the traditional connotation of such ‘everyday’ materials.
Opening Reception: August 22 from 5 – 7PM (artist talk at 6PM)