The Delicate Ties That Bind explores the precariousness of post-pandemic existence and assesses the complex and often fragile relationships that shape our lives now. These threads make up the nature of our reality and serve as metaphors for both a tattered society and the essential connections between us. They both have the power to hurt but also the power to heal. The exhibition delves into the intersections of social and geographic communities, religious institutions, political systems, environmental concerns, and personal connections.

Through this lens, the artists in this exhibition examine the delicate threads that weave together our shared experiences in a world forever changed by recent global events. The artists all have ties to Southern California but their work varies in style and perspective. How each of us engage with these relationships can have lasting effects, both good and bad, and our awareness of them hopefully serves to strengthen them in positive ways.

The Delicate Ties That Bind asks about our daily connections and whether breaking or strengthening those ties would affect the quality of our lives. It asks: What should we focus on building and what needs to be let go? How can we engage with the systems that construct our society and reshape them in ways that are better? And especially how can we make them better for vulnerable communities, the earth, and each other?

The Delicate Ties That Bind is sponsored by Chloe Ross.

The seven participating artists have a connection to Southern California or Claremont Graduate University. They are: Andrew Ballsteaedt, Richard Gate, Megan Knobloch Geilman, Kyla Hansen, Jackie Leishman, Alice Marie Perreault, and Samantha Zauscher.

The exhibition is curated by Megan Knobloch Geilman.

Jackie Leishman’s work explores the tenuous relationship between us and the land. A resident of Claremont, Jackie moved to the Los Angeles area after completing her MFA from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Originally trained as a photographer, she now works in mixed media. Using both traditional and non-traditional materials, including fragments of old projects, Leishman explores the dichotomies she witnesses.

Alice Marie Perreault’s work engages in the complicated but necessary interactions with the medical system, inspired by the experiences shaped with her non-verbal, disabled child and a sibling with Down Syndrome. Perreault’s art and caregiving roles overlap through non-traditional materials that include the medical supplies she uses to sustain her son’s life and improve its quality.

Richard Gate explores archetypes in relation to the land. Richard graduated with an MFA from CGU in 1989. Lea Ollman writes of his work: “Gate's work is a matter of selection and combination as much as creation, and is guided by a sensibility that never goes slack. He edges each square panel with a crisp band of white paint that brings to mind the border of a photographic print or slide, a reminder that the artist is isolating something from a vast continuum.”

Samantha Zauscher tackles Humanity at scale and dismays over the lack of public and performing arts during the pandemic in this exhibition. Zauscher is a California based portrait, fashion, and dance photographer whose stark yet intimate portraits display sensitivity and taste.

Kyla Hansen extrapolates on gender and labor dynamics with her pieces. The uniquely feminine references of the quilt contrasted with the masculinity of the denim, both with distinctly western qualities perhaps speak to a new kind of Manifest Destiny. The hand-carved basswood of the shovel in A Gadda Da Vida, v1 was a physically painstaking and labor intensive process suggesting hair braiding or breadmaking (both associated with women’s work) and combined with the shovel, remark on dynamics of manual labor. The leather, like the quilts can be both representation or abstract, reflecting on state-boundaries and farm land, while remaining liminal and suggestive. Kyla graduated from the MFA program at Claremont Graduate University in 2012.

Andrew Ballstaedt toys with the fragile relationship dynamics that inform our emotions. His palimpsest acrylic paintings overlayed with starkly drawn child-like monsters serve as playful avatars for our deepest insecurities. Ballstaedt graduated with the MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2010.

Megan Knobloch Geilman displays and plays with hermeneutics and theological considerations. Her pieces Woman with the Issue and Betrayal in the show deal with longings and pain associated with human relationships. She is a first year MFA student at CGU and is also participating in the Mormon Studies program.

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The exhibition opening will feature a panel discussion with Amanda Beardsley and Mason Kamana Allred, co-editors of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader, published by Oxford University Press. The panel, moderated by Glen Nelson, will be held October 19, at 4:30 p.m. in the Albrecht Auditorium on the campus of Claremont Graduate University. All are invited.

From 6:00-9:00 p.m., in the Peggy Phelps Gallery and the East Gallery, all are invited to an opening reception with remarks at 6:30 by the curator, artists, and the dean of the School of Arts and Humanities.