candace hicks, bumin kim, & erica stephens: uncommon thread
November 20, 2021 - January 8, 2022
Press Release
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Ro2 Art is proud to present Candace Hicks, Bumin Kim, and Erica Stephens: Uncommon Thread. The show will run from November 20, 2021 through January 98, 2022. The exhibition will open with a reception at Ro2 Art in The Cedars, located at 1501 S. Ervay St, Dallas, TX, 75215 and will take place from 7-10 PM.
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artist statement
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Candace Hicks: These hand-embroidered pages confront the existential possibilities of the blank page. The size, format, and color palette of notebook paper, they are familiar and warped at the same time. From across the room, they appear as flat, linear designs, but upon closer inspection reveal themselves to be delicately textured. My work has taken literature as its subject for many years, and writing has been central to my artistic practice. As Covid-19 changed all of our lives, I found it arrested my ability to compose a coherent text. The stories and commentary that had previously poured out of me were now blocked. As the winter storms of early 2021 compounded our isolation, I began drawing versions of a bare sheet of paper in blue thread onto canvas. Where I had previously embroidered the text and illustrations of my artist’s books, I created a void. Not the first or last to confront the dread of the blank page or to bend writer’s block into subject matter, I have named my humble drawings for the theoretical framework uniting all matter and forces at play in the universe.
Bumin Kim: I paint with string and am interested in pushing the limits of its materiality. The colors and imagery are inspired by nature and my memories. My undergraduate work was inspired by watching my mother fix socks or bags with holes in them by sewing separate parts into a whole. I used string as a way to investigate healing. Erica Stephens: In her series "Family Quilt," artist Erica Stephens returns to her previous explorations of textile work by creating updated quilt squares in the tradition of her grandmothers. She mines her family photo albums for imagery which she then doubles, distorts, and abstracts to reflect her memories and experiences both as a child and as a middle-aged woman. |
about the artists
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Candace Hicks is Associate Professor of Art at Stephen F. Austin State University where she teaches foundational courses in two-dimensional media. In 2009 she earned a Master of Fine Art degree in Printmaking from Texas Christian University.
Bumin Kim is a North Texas based artist originally from Korea. Kim received her MFA in drawing and painting in 2015 from the University of North Texas and remains an active member of the contemporary art community. Erica Stephens is an interdisciplinary artist who works with a focus on painting, as well as an author who has recently published her first collection of poetry. She completed her MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. |
