PARLOR
OF THE SPIRIT
Featuring artworks by Amanda Wagstaff and Kiernan Lofland
On view: October 5 - December 2, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 5 | 5:30 - 8PM
PARLOR
OF THE SPIRIT
written by Cameron Steele
https://steelecs.substack.com/
https://cameronscottsteele.com/
In a home, the parlor is an anticipatory space. Enclosed within the privacy of walls, family, and the objects that fill the lives of each, the parlor nevertheless anticipates the public, which is to say, it anticipates the opening, or the breaking down, of wall, of family, of object. Together, the art works of Amanda Wagstaff and Kiernan Lofland operate in similar fashion, breaking down and blurring the lines between inside and outside, viewer and artist, the living and the dead, art and nature. The ordinary materials that comprise The Parlor of the Spirit–wire, plaster, film photographs, found fabric, furniture–insist nevertheless on a certain kind of otherworldliness: What spirits interact with us when we engage with tarot as textile? What ghosts ruffle the hairs on our neck when we gaze at the dreadful awe of kudzu overtaking Virginia’s native woods? If the gallery is a parlor and the parlor is the transmutation of private worlds, for a time, into public ones, what public life comes to rest, to mingle in an age of environmental collapse? What can art offer in the face of mystery, grief, commonality? Like all good ghost stories, Wagstaff’s textiles and Lofland’s photography and sculpture offer ambiguous, sometimes contradictory answers. Like all good parlors, there’s a softness woven through this show–fabric, sinking clouds, rounded plaster–that offers, paradoxically, somewhere solid to land.
“Art doesn’t imitate life,” The Parlor of the Spirit proclaims, ghost words from a great writer. “Art anticipates it.”
EXHIBITION
ARTWORKS
All images courtesy of the artist.
EXHIBITING
ARTISTS
AMANDA
WAGSTAFF
Amanda Wagstaff is a visual artist who uses a range of textile processes and techniques — like hand-sewing, quilting, dying, and mending — to explore the poetic and narrative potential of found fabrics.
Amanda grew up on a dairy farm in Red Oak, Virginia and comes from a family of makers. Her fixation on the beauty of everyday objects began at William & Mary where she studied observational painting, grew at UNC-Greensboro where she incorporated elements of time and tedious labor into her thesis work, and transformed during her Fulbright research fellowship in Ireland where she studied the history of writing, monastic practices, and pilgrimage. It was during this fellowship that she started hand-sewing on found paper and fabrics as a meditation. Now, she maintains a studio in her home just outside of Charlottesville.
KIERNAN
LOFLAND
Kiernan Lofland was raised in Virginia but immersed in the varied landscapes of the United States from a young age. Memories and tactile sensations from his youth continue to have a profound impact on his work as an artist and maker of functional objects. Lofland pursued sculpture as an undergraduate at William and Mary, Virginia, and later earned his MFA from Southern Methodist University, Texas. His artistic practice is situated at the intersection of sculpture and photography, and he is also a lifelong art educator dedicated to sharing creativity with the next generation of artists.
This exhibition is also supported in part by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
