Interior resources: tana quincy arcega
December 1-31, 2021
re.riddle presents, Interior Resources, an online exhibition of textile paintings by Tana Quincy Arcega that will run from December 1-31, 2021. This exhibition is the part of re.flect, a program series that spotlights one of the gallery's artists each month. The rotating monthly series offers in-depth access into the respective processes and practices of our global community of artists. In addition, the artists have partnered with re.riddle to release unique works at special prices. These exclusive pieces will only be available during the month of the related exhibition.
Curatorial Statement
Where is the point where mental and manual meet, the transcendental and material? How might faith or compassion be translated into visual, physical form? Interior Resources, a solo exhibition of textile paintings by Tana Quincy Arcega aims to give material existence to the artist’s memories and faith for a compassionate future. Quincy Arcega’s visual lexicon is an extension and a thickening of her conceptual investigations vis a vis theories of house and home, sacrifice and faith. She asks, how can spiritual revelations manifest in a very practical reality? Does compassion have the capacity to cut through centuries of systemic precedent?
Quincy Arcega translates her title, Interior Resources, a reference to Dr. Martin Luther King’s Christian faith as the source for fortitude amidst the turmoil of his activism, into imagined dwellings for the unhoused that would similarly nourish as a source of abundance and rejuvenation. Her textile paintings consist of alluring and organic textures that emerge from a substrate, constructing navigable planes. Though variable in their formal qualities (compare Always Enough with I Will Give Them Fish), we discern the emerging spaces as tangible with edges and extensions one can mentally touch. In creating a sensorial experience, Quincy Arcega ignites the viewer’s imagination, which she hopes will permeate into even more actual, literal social architectures.
By selecting textiles that echo colors and patterns from her childhood summers in Nebraska, Quincy Arcega’s multimedia work is constructed upon a very nostalgic, symbolic foundation. In a bath towel, an oft-used material (seen in Writing Gospel and The Fourth Station), she sees the hand-touch manifestation of Mother Theresa – her caring for, hugging and cleaning the unhoused, unparented and unwashed. A humble, tactile, sacrificial role. Moreover, all the substrates (drawer liners, kitchen towels, lawn chairs and grocery bags) and the viscous materials she extrudes from the backside (wood filler, spackling paste or epoxies and acrylics), are again domestic-utilitarian in nature. Beyond the symbolism of using household materials in her meditations for the unhoused, we ask, what power, meaning and usefulness can domesticity have in social equity?
Through her painted architectures, Quincy Arcega employs spatial expiration, domestic nostalgia and spiritual morality to question socialized notions of inherent belonging, value and utility. Like prayers in their making, her artistic gesture practices are the manifestation of the transcendental and the hoped for, defined.
Programming
Interior Resources is part of re.flect, a program series that spotlights one of the gallery's artists each month. Each show offers in-depth access to the respective processes and practices within the global artistic community. A program will be presented alongside the exhibition that relates to Tana Quincy Arcega’s artistic practice. Please join us!
In Conversation: Amy Kisch x Tana Quincy Arcega
December 15, 2021
5pm PST/ 7pm CST/ 8pm EST
Amy Kisch speaks with Tana Quincy Arcega about her creative practice and the ways in which her work addresses belonging and social equity via the frameworks of faith, spiritual morality and compassion.
Amy Kisch is an independent art consultant, curator, cultural producer, strategic specialist, and community organizer—and Founder+ CEO of AKArt Advisory. Her expertise includes arts programming, development, marketing + PR, publishing, and collection management. Having spent six years in clinical and community social work, her projects are underscored by efforts to democratize access within the art world, while upholding integrity and quality in curatorial vision and programming. Commissioned by San Francisco’s Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA) to develop an arts-driven campaign to mobilize communities around the 2020 Census, she formed Art+Action—a coalition for civic participation across art, creative, community, business, technology, philanthropy, and government sectors—and launched the COME TO YOUR CENSUS campaign, which won support from the Ford Foundation to expand the initiative nationwide. Prior to that, Kisch developed Collect For Change™—a platform which collaborates with artists across disciplines, offering artwork with a portion of sales benefiting a charity personally selected by each artist. Kisch previously ran Sotheby’s global VIP program —curating, producing and marketing, including the Sotheby’s Preferred Museum Programme, Art Fair Programme, and The Economist Lecture series in New York, London, Los Angeles, Paris Chicago, and Hong Kong. While at Sotheby’s, Kisch concurrently held the roles of Executive Director and Corporate + Community Liaison for the Williamsburg Gallery Association in Brooklyn. Kisch also previously served as Director of Partnerships + Strategic Initiatives at the California Bay Area tech + science + art residency, Stochastic Labs. A member of ArtTable, Kisch has served on numerous committees and boards, including Headlands Center for the Arts, The People's Conservatory, Art & Abolition, City at Peace, CITYarts, NURTUREart, FolioCue, sparks & honey, and Time In Children’s Art Initiative. Kisch studied at The University of Chicago and holds a BA in Art History + Fine Arts from Columbia University, and a Masters in Social Work.
Born in Nebraska 1977, Tana Quincy Arcega obtained a BFA from the University of Nebraska and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art where she studied figurative painting and sculpture. An illness altered her methodologies over the course of several years to evolve her practice into one of material exploration, markmaking research and abstract painting. Her mouth paintings were featured in Her Living magazine in the story, “Overcoming Obstacles". She was a recent Finalist for the Sustainable Arts Grant. She has exhibited solo shows at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Foundry Art Center in Missouri, CounterPulse, Red Poppy Art House, Incline Gallery in San Francisco, and Gene Space in Shanghai, China.
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re.release (Ends December 31, 2021)
