RECEPTION: JUN 5

works by Claire Kiester & Kim Thomas

EXHIBIT OVERVIEW

Entangled explores the intersection of creativity and sustainability. Claire Kiester and Kim Thomas present works that encourage viewers to consider the value of the often overlooked or discarded—to examine our established routines and the materials that are part of our daily lives.

EXHIBIT STATEMENT

Claire Kiester

ARTIST STATEMENT “Entanglement” is an exhibition exploring the prevalence of patterns within our society and the residue they leave behind. Viewers will begin to take notice of systems and patterns throughout their daily lives. The show features pieces from Kiester’s new series of colorful, knotted paracord works and sculptural wall pieces. Over 50% of the utilized materials will be recycled and repurposed. Included works explore texture, materiality, and sustainability. Challenging the viewer to investigate the pieces and re-evaluate the resources at their disposal to create. Showing others the continued possibilities of items they discard, inspires them to look at recycling in a new way and incorporate it into their own lives. With this exhibition, Kiester is determined to inspire new audiences and empower them to explore their own sustainable creativity.

ARTIST BIO Claire Kiester is a fiber artist, printmaker, and public artist from Chapel Hill, NC. She completed her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021 and now resides in Charlotte, NC. Her work has been featured in galleries and events such as Goodyear Arts, McColl Center, Peel Gallery, The Compound Gallery in Emeryville, CA, and The LeRoy Nieman Center in Chicago, IL. She has created many large-scale public art installations throughout North Carolina. These include her pieces for The Charlotte International Arts Festival, Charlotte SHOUT!, and Uproar Festival of Public Art.

Kiester currently works as a teaching artist at Studio 345, an afterschool program for at-risk youth, and as an artist in the greater Charlotte community.

Kim Thomas

ARTIST STATEMENT My works are a visual discussion around climate change, nature, and our insatiable consumer culture. As an intersection between all three issues, found single-use plastics are often used as a key material in my artwork. In manipulating debris through a variety of media—primarily sculpture, installation, and printmaking—I present the viewer with an everyday object in an unexpected, new form. I am particularly interested in the way these forms mimic human consumption and its relationship to pollution, which spreads over and suffocates the world around us, just as plastics become entangled in the environment. My works are abstract embodiments of this process, usually on a larger scale, in an attempt to envelop the scope of issues we face in the​​ Anthropocene. Each piece brings with it the narrative associated with its materiality, the juxtaposition of nature and man-made, and challenges the viewer to contemplate their own relationship with these materials.

ARTIST BIO Kim Thomas is an internationally exhibiting artist working with the relationship between the natural environment and discarded materials, especially plastics. Her works have been exhibited in various venues, including at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, Latitude 53 in Alberta, Canada and Museo del Brigantaggio in Itri, Italy. In 2011, she was selected for her solo exhibition at the Brooks Museum in Memphis, TN.

Thomas holds her MFA in Studio Art from Memphis College of Art. She currently lives in her native Charleston, SC. She is the proud single mom to a preschooler. Thomas is also a full-time high school Art teacher.