Alex McQuilkin (b. 1980, lives in New York State) creates work in multiple media that explores the construction of female identity within the context of a patriarchal system that affects women’s lives in both obvious and subtle ways. In the installation, Alex McQuilkin: That Hand-Touch Sensibility, the artist has hand embroidered statements from Sol Lewitt’s Paragraphs on Conceptual Art (1967) in soft pastel hues on hand-dyed fabric typically used as cloth diapers. The works are framed in industrially fabricated aluminum hoops painted to match the thread and textile. The resulting monochromes reference the heroic and gendered language of minimalism while simultaneously framing craft, labor, and motherhood as the legitimate subject of art. The embroidered works are placed on an artist designed wallcovering based on the Laura Ashley and Ralph Lauren wallpapers that adorned the walls of many fashionable homes during the artist’s formative years. Overall, McQuilkin’s installation becomes a microcosm of a stereotypically feminine domestic space where gender dynamics are revealed in real time.

Exhibition curated by Helaine Posner (C’75).