Familiar Texture: The Fibers of Childhood and Home presents works by six artists who re-create a memory or fantasy of childhood within a domestic space. Artists Farah Al Qasimi, Hangama Amiri, Keith Jackson, Yvette Mayorga, Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey, and Dalila Sanabria each spend time with nostalgia and memorialize moments that shaped their future. To distinguish the emotions associated with such efforts, the artists reference textiles to present a sense of comfort, play, or safety.
Mayorga and Al Qasimi each offer a mirage of their childhood bedroom that expresses a desire for refuge from invasive technologies and surveillance states. A loss of civil liberties and family structure is considered by Amiri and Sanabria in their depictions of political and social freedoms experienced at a young age. The beauty of the everyday is seen in works by Prisbrey and Jackson, whose work comments on the importance of celebrating leisure and joy—especially for their inner child.
Each artist focuses on a setting rather than featuring themselves in their work. This approach explores occupation and ownership of place, while providing an opening for viewers to project themselves into each scene. The texture of each work thus becomes interwoven with multiple perspectives to collectively shape origin stories.
