Good Citizen Gallery announces a new group exhibition
Material Studies
September 4 –26
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, Sept. 4, 6:00pm - 10:00pm
GALLERY TALK: Saturday, Sept., 12, 2:00 pm

Material Studies is a culmination of artists exploring the world of fibers in which the boundaries between art and everyday life are blurred by our familiarity with materials and hand-made processes. This exhibition features a group of six contemporary fiber artists from the St. Louis region who combine traditional fibers techniques with other media, installation, and/or performance. The show is full of highly charged artworks meant to challenge and inform our personal involvement with fiber materials and processes in the world today.

PARTICIPATING FIBER ARTISTS:
Erin K. Cork
Courtney Henson
Christine A. Holtz
Jessica May
Alicia Pigg
Jessica Witte

Erin K. Cork grew up in the St. Louis area. She received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Secondary Education with an Art emphasis from the University of Missouri Columbia and completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art Textiles at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Currently, she can be found teaching at local colleges and universities as an adjunct professor, teaching fibers classes at Craft Alliance and working in her studio on fine art and functional pieces. In Cork’s work she is captivated by the reclaiming of objects that have previously existed through another’s ownership to explore the nostalgia of her own memories.
www.erincork.com

Courtney Henson completed her MFA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her textile skills allow her materials to give deeper meaning to her work. She is currently working at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Her work utilizes pseudo-scientific and early medical formats of specimens as well as the scientific method as a method for research for her work. Through personal experiments she examines our culture in order to discover the roots of certain beliefs present in our society’s language and actions.

Christine A. Holtz received her M.F.A. in fiber arts from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and her B.F.A. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in both painting and fiber arts. She currently is an adjunct instructor at St. Charles Community College, Jefferson College, and also teaches courses at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, MO. She has exhibited her artwork both nationally and internationally and has completed multiple commissions for different organizations. Christine’s work is an ongoing search for a system of logic behind her everyday actions as a consumer. Her work often utilizes the repetitiveness of craft processes to simulate the repetitiveness of consumer habit.
www.christineaholtz.com

Jessica May completed bachelor degrees in both Art Education and Fine Arts at Purdue University and has just completed her MFA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is currently living and working out of Saint Louis, Missouri. In general, her current work deals with levels of separation and/or mediation between people and nature. She blends remains of animals and man-made materials such as glass, wood, fabric, etc. Viewers are intended to question how and why they assign varying levels of value for the life around them. This work is about honoring the animal- and life in general- by spending time considering them in ways that have usually been reserved only for beautiful things.

Alicia Pigg has a background and training in fine arts and museum studies. She attended undergraduate school at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting with a Minor in philosophy. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is where she attended graduate school and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in textiles. In addition to her fine arts degrees, she completed the Museum Studies Graduate Program at Southern Illinois University. Her artwork has been displayed in numerous exhibitions across the country, and she has been recognized for her textiles, photography, and local history research. As a working artist, her focus involves cycles of change that appear as remnants in the landscape.

Jessica Witte is an artist originating from Omaha, Nebraska. She attended undergraduate school at the University of Nebraska, Kearney and received her Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Northern Illinois University. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Midwest at museums and art organizations. Her installation, sculpture, and drawing explore control and allude to fixing the transitory. Jessica has been an arts administrator and educator for several years and is currently an art instructor at several venues in St. Louis.
www.jessicawitte.com