Tending/Tender
Tending/Tender
Lois Bielefeld
Noelle Garcia
Tulika Ladsariya
These artists coax communication across cultural, generational, and ideological boundaries. They reveal a desire to nurture and propagate new offshoots, honoring the nuances of change and growth where there is no firm demarcation. Ritual, recovered narratives, and displacement are explored through photographs, drawings, and objects that often reference vessels. In her soft sculptures, Garcia employs beading techniques that recall her identity as a North American indigenous artist in her Medicine Bottles. Small things of consequence become fertile ground for work that dialogues with lineage while responding to emergent interpretations. Her work also includes paintings and drawings, often based on family photographs taken of her as a child when she visited her father in prison. Bielefeld is a queer Milwaukee based photographer who also works in video and installation. Generational and ideological boundaries are compassionately examined in the series ‘To commit to memory’, which focuses on her parents who are evangelical Christians. Captions reveal a collaborative attempt to describe domestic rituals within the boundary of home. As a first-generation migrant mother, Ladsariya creates literal vessels that act as temporary homes for propagation. Cuttings from plants grow in hand built ceramic pieces that are embossed with tatted lace made by her mother in India, extending this generosity of spirit by providing the viewer an opportunity to reflect on the nature of careful tending. This work reveals these artists’ penchant for diving into vulnerabilities that are inherent in negotiating past and present, the tangled interplay of identity and ritual.
O'Connor Art Gallery
Dominican University
River Forest, IL
2023
Photos: Tom Van Eynde