Creature Comforts

March – April 2018

Image above: Rachel Hyland, Stop Faking It, textile and embroidery, 37.5” x 40”, 2018.

Opening reception: Thursday, March 29 from 5-7 pm

The animal within us is always hungry for comfort. Among today’s forceful society, we are required to rapidly shed our identities and evolve from children to adults to artists. Our experiences create chaos of pleasure and revulsion; as we endure the bleeding processes of becoming who we’re meant to be, we find both disgust and comfort in our changing bodies and minds. While embracing and despising the soft curves of ourselves and our vulnerabilities, we torment and soothe ourselves with our creature comforts.

As we face our uncertain futures, we are reassured that our growing pains are normal—that our thoughts and problems are temporary, that our deepest fears are what make us good humans and good artists, and that eventually the wild creature in us will be tamed. Our creature comforts lick our wounds; we yearn to soothe and be soothed, to comfort and be comfortable.

Artists Kavya Tiwari, Sara Lochmueller, Rachel Hyland, and Linh Nguyen navigate the dichotomy of balancing expectations and desires for the sake of evolution in Creature Comforts at the Ralph Arnold Gallery, from March 29 to April 13, 2018.