CHICAGO- Volume Gallery is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition with Tanya Aguiñiga, Mothering the Form, opening January 30th from 6-8pm at 845 West Washington Blvd, Chicago. In Mothering the Form Aguiñiga directs a personal narrative through objects that are cared for, covered, mended, protected and caressed. Utilizing materials that are both humble and primal: wood, fire, earth, metal and wool, Aguiñiga creates works that are culturally ubiquitous and ambiguous at the same time.
Fifteen months into motherhood, Aguiñiga finds that “every experience poses new questions and reflections on what it is to be human and how to raise a human.” Aguiñiga makes the connection between raising a child and the creation of this new body of work with ease. Rearing a child has led to the discovery of new planes of meaning; relationships have larger importance, family more resonance, and work reflective of an altered state of mind and body.
A well-versed maker and designer, Aguiñiga specializes in weaving fiber works, rendering the conceptual into the physical. Reveling in their liminal qualities, her practice produces pieces equally belonging to the worlds of art, design and craft. Steeped in Mexican and American cultures, her bilingual aesthetics and means of making blend traditions specific to each.
Aguiñiga’s fibrous objects command investigation through intricate textures, playful forms and atypical and often humble materials. She constructs the objects in Mothering the Form utilizing the same instinctual, visceral nature of raising a child –using craft as a metaphor for nurturing, memory and time.
