Postindustrial is thrilled to join forces with the ZYNKA Gallery to provide you with a glimpse of an exciting new exhibit by one of Pittsburgh’s most thought-provoking artists, whose work has a growing audience in Postindustrial America and around the world.
Gallery owner Jeff Jarzynka has this to say about the bold and innovative artwork of Ashley Cecil currently showing at the ZYNKA Gallery through July 20, 2024:
We’re thrilled to be showing new work from Ashley Cecil at ZYNKA Gallery. Her last solo show with us was in January 2021, still under restraints of the COVID pandemic – strange days, though I’m not sure any less strange than our present time.
Some of the works in this current “Common Wealth” exhibit were shown last Fall at the Albany Museum of Art in Georgia in her “Land That I Love” exhibition – others have been produced this year as an expansion of that show.
In “Common Wealth” Ashley continues to create provocative pieces that deliver messages of feminism, the environment/nature, and politics, while broadening her use of materials – textiles, cut acrylic and more mixed media have been added to her palette.
Now, let’s hear from the artist in her own words:
Works in this exhibition explore our allegiances and how we express them. Familiar flags and emblems that visually signal our affiliations, beliefs, and values are steeped in patriotic or male-centric views that divide us by artificial borders and presume our rights to ownership of nature.
This mentality also perpetuates the subjugation of women. From dowries and debts to deeds, we shed blood over seizure and control of the bodies of women and nature. For such a burden, both deserve the same agency and freedom we gain in their service.
These works propose a “matriotic” global view that defines home and our fellow “citizens” in the context of shared common wealth. This wealth – water, air, food, health, community – is contingent on our care and stewardship, not our abuse and exploitation.
Stars and stripes are exchanged for a new aesthetic that puts women and nature at the forefront of our fidelity and urges that we reexamine to whom or what we pledge our allegiance.
The exhibition features a participatory artwork that asks gallery visitors “To whom or what do you pledge your allegiance?”
Responses are collected like ballots and incorporated into an artwork in the gallery. For those not able to see the show in-person, submissions can be submitted online here.
