Gormley Gallery Exhibition Proposal #2
Curatorial Theme:
Why here, Why now?:
What else?:
Who:
Our Mother is an exhibition featuring contemporary artists based in and around Baltimore whose work centers on issues of womanhood. These artists use personal experience to navigate and illuminate contemporary questions surrounding gender. The title Our Mother refers both to the university’s namesake and to the broader concept of a shared human community rooted in “Mother Earth.” The theme encourages interdisciplinary inquiry into the interconnections between femininity, ecology, and embodied knowledge. This includes the convergence of art and science in the works of Se Jong Cho; the examination of female gender roles and medical history in the work of Bonnie Crawford; the reimagining of gender norms through textile storytelling in the work of Julianna Dail; and the exploration of environmental resonance and personal identity in the work of Ciarra K. Walters. Taken together, the exhibition foregrounds the integral ecology between intimate, lived experiences of female identity and a collective responsibility to honor our planet as a generative and sustaining mother.
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This exhibition is well suited for the Gormley Gallery at Notre Dame of Maryland University, particularly for its potential to deepen engagement with the university’s identity as a proud Laudato Si’ institution. Drawing inspiration from Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, the exhibition explores actionable themes of environmental stewardship and social justice. These concerns are approached through a gendered lens, acknowledging both the power and the risk of aligning womanhood with natural resources. Rather than reinforcing essentialist tropes, the exhibition draws strength from personal experience and examining the shared historical roots of gendered oppression and environmental exploitation—systems that have long underpinned colonial expansion by alienating so-called “internal others.”
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Auxiliary programs, shaped by student interest and feedback, may include:
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Art therapy group sessions for processing eco-anxiety
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Climate Justice Action Hour, offering students a structured opportunity to contact government representatives and inhabit their personal agency
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Study hours with artist-recommended reading materials provided
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Artist Talk with Se Jong Cho​ on subtheme of art and science
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Artist Talk with Julianna Dail on gender and storytelling
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Artist Talk with Bonnie Crawford on gender and environmental crisis
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Artist Talk and art making workshop with Jordan Tierney on art, spirituality, and the environment
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Artist Talk with Ciarra K. Walters on identity and the environment
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Performance Art events featuring exhibitors and invited guests
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Film screenings followed by Q&A sessions
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Research:
Laudato Si' encyclical: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.pdf
https://www.ndm.edu/news-and-events/news/ndmu-commits-sustainability-laudato-si-university
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Featured artists:
Se Jong Cho
When I immigrated to the United States as a teenager, I gave up painting because I thought realizing the “American Dream” would be more feasible through the pursuit of STEM education. I lived without painting for over a decade while getting an undergrad and graduate degrees in civil engineering and environmental sciences. I spent much of my academic career with doubts about my aptitude in science, feeling like an imposter—an artist in scientist disguise. Then, I started painting while I was pursuing a PhD in environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. To my amazement, it was the act of painting that empowered me to complete my scientific pursuit. Painting taught me to recognize the incremental nature of progress and to cultivate faith in my own capabilities.
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Now after painting for several years, I began to appreciate the entanglement of art and science in my life. My training as a scientist taught me to become observant and to think critically, and painting renewed my sense of curiosity. I cultivated my brand of imagination through the studies in science, and developed my painting techniques informed by engineering discipline. My scientific research is also taking a new path in the integration of art and science because while sciences can provide data and facts about environmental issues, it is often not sufficient to influence our decision-making and promote conservation behavior. Susan Sontag observed that works of art “give rise not to conceptual knowledge but to something like an excitation, a phenomenon of commitment, judgment in a state of thralldom or captivation.” Art touches people where science can't reach. I believe that a strong coalition between science and art must be formed to address some of the most pressing social issues in the world.
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My painting practice has expanded the social platform to contribute my voice that has evolved through my experiences as a woman, immigrant, and scientist. Octavia Butler said that “most Humans lose access to old memories as they acquire new ones. They keep what experience has taught them—usually—but lose the experience itself.”Artists and scientists perform the function of archivists: we examine, quantify, and document our experiences so we may recall how we got here and to check the established system of beliefs. Therefore, I am steering my practice to integrate multi-disciplinary perspectives to produce a new artistic experience as a way to effectively engage the audience, rather than a didactic approach to addressing social issues. I intend to expose the audience to the social and scientific foundations of historical experiences as the context for our present conditions and dreams for the future.
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Bonnie Crawford
or, if there be flooding
or, if there be flooding serves as an imagined response plan to a potential catastrophe. The title of this piece is a fragment from Advice to a Wife and Mother, published in 1878. Flooding, in the context of the book, refers to postpartum hemorrhaging. However, this euphemistic language can be more literally interpreted to reference natural disasters or rising sea levels. Blinking lights aimed at shadowy vignettes of accumulated detritus in the installation signal tenderly to the viewer a warning, a lament.
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Julianna Dail
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Julianna Dail is a multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, paper sculptures, fiber, and installation. Starting with an investigation of patterns, like those found in storytelling, (mis)communication, textiles, and behaviors; the work speaks about comfort versus security, identity, gender norms, or accountability of actions.
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Starting with an investigation of patterns, like those found in storytelling, (mis)communication, textiles, and behaviors; my work speaks about comfort versus security, identity, gender norms, or accountability of actions.
I have methodically cut text to create work about banned books, woven multiples of miniature pants to speak about war, and created a crime scene between the characters of Dorothy and Alice to question our archetypes of gender. My dominant materials are typically from a store’s craft section, a recycle bin, or recovered from someone’s basement.
Currently I am focusing on historical fabric patterns that were once used in embroidery, weavings, or cross-stitching for home décor and to beautify utilitarian cloth. For my drawings in this series, working on gridded paper creates a direct reference to the way embroidery patterns are recorded and passed down in many cultures. My woven paper sculptures enlarge the patterns and allow for further manipulation. Being raised by an immigrant, culturally significant patterns were always a part of my environment – from Hutsul stitched pillows and cloths to traditional blouses, vests, and shoes. I alter these traditional patterns, and others from a wider history, to speak about the repetitions, restrictions, and psychological to physical restructurings that are evident in our day to day and our larger shared stories.
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Julianna also seeks out ways to work outside of the studio and promote artful actions. This includes working weekly with K- 5th graders in craft and art projects, hikes, and basic outdoor skills and creating larger scale art projects that promote community engagement.
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Ciarra K. Walters
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Ciarra K. Walters (1992) is a visual artist and educator based in Prince George's County, Maryland. She received her MFA in Photography + Media & Society from The Maryland Institute College of Art in 2024.
Her art practice examines the body as a site of agency, self-discovery, and environmental resonance through an interdisciplinary approach using performance, photography, printmaking, and sculpture.
She transforms her body into temporary sculptures using materials like wire, eggshells, and nylons, blurring the boundaries between the self and the environment. Her ritualistic performances and movement work are characterized by spontaneity, intuition, and trust in the body's capacity for self-expression.
Walters's process is guided by her awareness of how power and identity shape our relationships with the spaces we occupy.
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Jordan Tierney
Bird Reliquaries from Late 21st Century, Jones Falls Settlement
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My work grows organically from time spent wandering in the urban streams and forest buffers of Baltimore. These hidden waterways were designed to channel storm water from all our impervious surfaces like roads, shopping malls, and housing developments. The water transports all the trash and pollution it collects along the way, to the Jones Falls, then the Chesapeake Bay, and out to the Atlantic Ocean. While hiking, I feel a mixture of awe at the lush life that manages to grow in such an abused environment and horror at the way we have treated the earth. I worry about climate collapse and especially my daughter’s future.
For a long time I grieved and raged. Now I use my skills and a little sorcery to change the valence of the trash I collect from negative to positive. I weave the overlooked into a poetic visual presence I hope can remind us all that our earth is beautiful and complicated and magical. This process of observing nature, collecting trash, and making art has become a spiritual practice for me.
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These sculptures are each based on a bird I have traveled through the outdoors with. Many of the wood pieces I use come from trees knocked over in a flood so I can use parts of the roots where a stone got incorporated in the wood. This resiliency during growth is an inspiration to me. People who live close to the land and make everything they need must use what they can find in their immediate environment. I enjoy that kind of resourcefulness. Each piece is a manifestation of many days of labor. This kind of devotion only happens when we love something. I love this planet and am grateful for the places my feet touch the ground here.
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Kingfisher Reliquary
Tree root with natural stone inclusions vintage flatware chest, antique wheel, spark plug, rusty hardware, fishing lures, beads, and hair ties found in stream, kettle spout, arrow tip collage, velvet, paint, 15x22x4"