November 20 - January 8, 2022
From Ro2 Art:
“Ro2 Art is proud to present Uncommon Thread: Candace Hicks, Bumin Kim, and Erica Stephens, an exhibition featuring new interpretations in the medium of textile art. The show will run from November 20, 2021 through January 8, 2022. The exhibition will open with a reception at Ro2 Art in The Cedars, located at 1501 S. Ervay St, Dallas, TX, 75215 and will take place from 7-10 PM.
Each artist in this group show reinvents textile art through parallel universes, memory, and pushing the limits of materiality. Candace Hicks creates works that simultaneously pull from pop-art and quantum physics. Bumin Kim investigates the healing properties of thread with painterly color. Erica Stephens collapses past and present through quilted abstraction.
Artist Statements Candace Hicks
These hand-embroidered pages confront the existential possibilities of the blank page. The size, format, and color palette of notebook paper, they are familiar and warped at the same time. From across the room, they appear as flat, linear designs, but upon closer inspection reveal themselves to be delicately textured. My work has taken literature as its subject for many years, and writing has been central to my artistic practice. As Covid-19 changed all of our lives, I found it arrested my ability to compose a coherent text. The stories and commentary that had previously poured out of me were now blocked. As the winter storms of early 2021 compounded our isolation, I began drawing versions of a bare sheet of paper in blue thread onto canvas. Where I had previously embroidered the text and illustrations of my artist’s books, I created a void. Not the first or last to confront the dread of the blank page or to bend writer’s block into subject matter, I have named my humble drawings for the theoretical framework uniting all matter and forces at play in the universe.
Bumin Kim I paint with string and am interested in pushing the limits of its materiality. The colors and imagery are inspired by nature and my memories. My undergraduate work was inspired by watching my mother fix socks or bags with holes in them by sewing separate parts into a whole. I used thread as a way to investigate healing.
Erica Stephens In her series “Family Quilt,” artist Erica Stephens returns to her previous explorations of textile work by creating updated quilt squares in the tradition of her grandmothers. She mines her family photo albums for imagery which she then doubles, distorts, and abstracts to reflect her memories and experiences both as a child and as an middle-aged woman.
About the Artists
Candace Hicks is Associate Professor of Art at Stephen F. Austin State University where she teaches foundational courses in two-dimensional media. In 2009 she earned a Master of Fine Art degree in Printmaking from Texas Christian University.
Bumin Kim is a North Texas based artist originally from Korea. Kim received her MFA in drawing and painting in 2015 from the University of North Texas and remains an active member of the contemporary art community.
Erica Stephens is an interdisciplinary artist who works with a focus on painting, as well as an author who has recently published her first collection of poetry. She completed her MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California.
About Ro2 Art
Ro2 Art is a contemporary fine art gallery with spaces in The Cedars Neighborhood and Downtown Dallas, representing a diverse group of emerging, mid-career, and established contemporary artists – many with ties to the North Texas Region. The gallery, founded in 2010 by mother-and-son partners Susan Roth Romans and Jordan Roth, regularly collaborates with organizations such as The MAC and Cedars Union, and maintains an exhibition program within the Magnolia Theatre at West Village and other satellite venues. Ro2 Art has been named Dallas Observer’s Best Art Gallery and was presented with the 25th Annual Obelisk Award for small business by the North Texas Business Council for the Arts. The gallery’s art fair program has included the Dallas Art Fair, Texas Contemporary, and Art Aspen. More info: http://www.ro2art.com
All works will be on view November 20, 2021 – January 8, 2021. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, November 20, 7-10 PM at Ro2 Art, located at 1501 S Ervay St, Dallas TX 75215. For more information, visit www.Ro2art.com, or call Jordan Roth at (214) 802-9575.”
Reception: November 20, 2021 | 7–10 pm
1501 South Ervay Street
Dallas, 75215 TX
(214) 803-9575
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