RedLine Milwaukee Air Gallery, second floor
the idea of home – Artists Katie Ryan and Jody Emory
March 7 – March 31
Jody Emory and Katie Ryan are current Artists-In-Residence at RedLine Milwaukee. Their artwork themed “the idea of home” is on display at the AIR Gallery through March 31st. Emory’s work is representational of her most recent sculptures: nests. Ryan presents an interactive piece that includes public participation.
Ryan’s interactive artwork is titled drawing by memory, in which she explores the idea of layers and asks guests to draw on it. Drawing utensils are available for the public with instructions for guests to draw their home from memory, whether it is their home’s interior or the exterior, a room, a chair, whatever they wish. They MUST layer on the drawings already present. Every few days the drawings will be wiped away and new ones will be made, creating a feeling of memory and transience.
In this piece Ryan explores the themes of memory, home, and transience. Ryan has been exploring these ideas mainly in two-dimensional work through additive and reductive methods of painting and collage. Ryan juxtaposes interiors and exteriors of homes and creates an environment that is never at rest.
Jody Emery’s work thus far has explored abstract notions of coming together and moving apart, opposing states of distillation/migration, dispersion/coalescence and evaporation/condensation. Emory is fascinated with the shape of a spiral as representing the idea of repetition and recurrence. Recently, she explored the idea of home as a structure, a physical place, a language, and how it can be in harmony or in conflict with home as a state of mind.
