Exhibitions

JENIE GAO: THE DEAR GARDEN

Slocumb Galleries (ETSU) / 232 Sherrod. Dr. , Johnson City, TN April 6 - 24th

Jenie Gao

ETSU Department of Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries in partnership with Bravissima! Women Sponsoring the Arts, and support from ETSU SAIC, Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, and Tennessee Arts Commission proudly present The Deer Garden: Jenie Gao at the Slocumb Galleries.

The Deer Garden features print and installation work by Asian American artist Jenie Gao in her effort to reclaim narratives of heritage through transformation of material culture. The exhibition honors her Asian heritage and homage to her matrilineal relations as the “family’s knowledge keepers.”

In one of the installations, Where Mountain Cats Live, a multimedia assemblage, Gao stated that it “acknowledges the precarity that are often [heritage] build roots upon.” Through this work of table-based installation, prints, and accompanying artist’s books, Gao “collapses layers of global and local colonization, childhood memories, and familial narratives of home, displacement, and perseverance, embedded in individual objects” as it simultaneously investigates “material culture, as homage to the ‘imagination of the oppressed,’ and a love letter to her mother and extended communities who in the face of many uncertainties maintain a sense of home” while inviting viewers for innovative lenses to strengthen community bonds.

The Slocumb Galleries are located at Ernest C. Ball Hall. Gallery hours are weekdays, Mondays thru Fridays from 9am to 5pm with extended hours during receptions and by appointments. For more information, schedule a visit or for handicapped accommodations, please email Karlota Contreras-Koterbay via contrera@etsu.edu.