Green Kitchen

The Art Academy of Cincinnati is pleased to present Green Kitchen, an exhibition of artworks by Tracy Featherstone (https://www.tracyfeatherstone.com). 

About the Artist: Tracy Featherstone’s creative practice spans multiple media including sculpture, printmaking, textile, and clay to explore the wonders of the natural world and human-mediated environment. She is a lover of materials and process and often uses both of these things to communicate audibly in the work. Featherstone is a Professor of Art and Head of printmaking at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned a BFA from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has taught art on three continents including North America, Asia, and Europe. She was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Award for Creative Excellence in recognition of her creative work (2006 and 2013). In addition, she was supported by the US Embassy for a 3-month residency in Prague, CZ (2019). Recent solo exhibitions include Nest at Basketshop Gallery (Cincinnati OH, 2023). Recent group exhibitions include Wake, Sleep, Dream, Beehler Gallery, CCAD (Columbus Ohio, 2024) and Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations, University of Kentucky Art Museum (Lexington, KY, 2024). Featherstone is currently working on transitioning Miami University’s print shop into a non-toxic, environmentally friendly shop.

About the Exhibition: The Covid 19 pandemic forced Featherstone to move through several life changes simultaneously. Some changes included getting divorced, adopting the dog Skye, teaching virtual studio classes, moving into a new home, setting up a new personal studio space, and transitioning into a new job as head of printmaking at Miami University. The changes were by no means the worst-case scenario regarding covid fallout, and it is recognized that many people had much greater life tragedies. In Featherstone’s world it was like someone pushed the red eject button. Green Kitchen includes work completed between 2023 and 2024 in a new home and a new life, post covid upset. It’s a redemption story about looking the current situation straight in the eye and starting again. When the world started back up again, Featherstone found herself in a new environment trying to figure out how to make new work. She second-guessed every decision, especially what to draw or what to make work about. She began exploring the idea that the “what” was less important than how the subject was addressed. She wanted to open the channels of communication again between her and the work to be made. So, in the spirit of the One Minute Sculptures by artist Erwin Wurm, she required herself to do one quick ink drawing daily to get out of the overly critical funk she was in and move back into intuitive and open conversation. The results have manifested in this show. All the work in this exhibition explores common themes in previous works such as the importance of materials, relationships, longing, touch, and how we shape the environment and the environment shapes us. All works were made in the new studio in the new household which has a delightful green kitchen.