Exhibitions
SARA MCLOUD & YASMINE EL-CHAER: TELLING WOMEN'S STORIES
Turnip Green Creative Reuse / 407 Houston Street, Nshville, TN April 4, 2020 - April 26, 2020
Sara McLoud, Yasmine El-Chaer
Turnip Green Creative Reuse will host a VIRTUAL GALLERY OPENING via Instagram Live on Saturday, April 4th at 6pm in place of an in-person reception. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/turn...
Telling Women’s Stories is a series by Yasmine El-Chaer and Sara McLoud, a visual representation of women both of flesh and of fiction. Both artists examine stories of women, whether autobiographically or through literature, and both achieve this without acknowledgement of or attention to the male gaze, so present in our patriarchal society. Their stories are seen and told in a different light.
The show will include collages, textile art, and mixed media works of Yasmine El-Chaer, and the tapestry and textile art of Sara McLoud.
Yasmine El-Chaer is a Palestinian-American artist from Nashville, TN. They received their BFA at Austin Peay State University and has featured works in Nashville and Clarksville. They often attempt to create a discussion through mixed media processes and work with immigrants and Palestinians to accurately display communication between different cultures.
"We can no longer hold women to these impossible standards if we want our future daughters to thrive. We need to show them that women, born or transitioning, are not villains, and, more often than not, the only crime we ever committed was being right in the face of a man. It would be wrong to teach our daughters that we are meant to be ashamed of our abuse or because, maybe at one point in our lives, the patriarchy had its nails dug into us. It is time to celebrate these “bad” women in literature before a man decides to give them any worth. Women should be able to value women without being told it is okay; no man needs to decide this for us. It is our decision." - El-Chaer
Sara McLoud is a Nashville-based artist. A native of Murfreesboro, TN, she studied theater and fashion at MTSU and worked for two years in theater costuming in New York City before relocating back to TN in 2009. Since then, she has worked as a freelance seamstress for local designers and an artist. Her current work is the bridge between sewing, quilting, and fiber art, nudged into the realm of high art by a painterly aesthetic. Her pieces are made from reused fabrics and materials, disassembled and then reconstructed into collage art, with both the function of home goods and the sensibilities of fine art. She was recently featured in Reimagining Pathways at Turnip Green Creative Reuse in the Wedgewood-Houston area of Nashville.
"I’ve often felt forgotten or simply left behind in a dusty attic, as I imagine many mothers and wives feel. My true self was packed away in a beloved trunk and buried in the backyard of responsibilities and daily routine. For me, through trauma came self-discovery. I found that forgotten girl and put her hand into the lost womans’ who was simply going through the motions. Now we forge ahead unified, a united soul wielding our shared truth as we clear a path toward something yet to be discovered. This series started with found fabrics and photographs and an idea of rescuing forgotten items in an effort to tell their stories. However, through my work imagining the stories of these discarded people and their objects, I discovered my own story. I found myself underneath their ephemera and detritus, and unearthed a need to tell that story. " - McCloud
