VAE is excited to present FEMININE SPECTRUM, a project that includes the work of 16 artists and a suite of 9 programs created in collaboration with guest curator Stacey L. Kirby.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
FEMININE SPECTRUM is the first curatorial project by artist Stacey L. Kirby that celebrates works by the creative community who identify as being on the feminine spectrum. Kirby takes a personal approach to the exhibition by selecting artists that have inspired her gender identity journey as a queer cis white female artist during her time in and outside of the South.
...teachers - artists - mentors - activists - educators - parents - musicians - siblings -partners - researchers - dancers - explorers…
Visitors are invited to reflect on connections between gender identity and creative expression as they experience painting, sculpture, performance, installation, works on paper, video, movement-based workshops with live music. Parenthood, familial roles, social justice, erotic love, questioning of personal and public histories and the evolution of gender identities are topics within FEMININE SPECTRUM. Kirby invites visitors to contemplate their own gender identity and influences as she acknowledges her limited representation of an ever-evolving spectrum.
THE ARTISTS
Tatana Kellner
Heather McEntire
Ntsiki Nconjana
Susan Harbage Page
elin o'Hara slavick
Christy Smith
Andrew Synowiez
Joe Westerlund
Daniel B. Coleman
Carson Efird
Ellie Ga
Marie Garlock
Heather Gordon
Beth Grabowski
Harriet Hoover
Katie Johnson
Ann Kalmbach
THE CURATOR
Stacey L. Kirby is an artist from the American South currently based in Durham, NC. Kirby’s 'performative interactions' and collaborative projects combine installation and performance in both alternative, private and public spaces. Fueled by the current political climate and issues of citizenship, Kirby invites visitors to become active participants in her work to empower the voice within all of us.
Kirby is a recipient of the ArtPrize Eight Juried Grand Prize (2016), the NC Arts Council Artist Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014-15), an ArtPrize Pitch Night Grant (2016) for North Carolina and an Indies Arts Award from the Independent Weekly (Durham, NC) for her participation in the BAIN Project (2009). She is nominee for the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2017) a finalist for the 1858 Prize by the Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, SC) for contemporary southern art. Kirby has also been awarded artist residencies throughout the U.S. including the Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), the Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL) and Artspace (Raleigh, NC). She is also a recipient of grants from the Durham Arts Council and the United Arts Council of Wake County.
Kirby's performances take place in various environments such as vacant historic buildings, protests, festivals as well as traditional art spaces. Kirby has performed and exhibited at ArtPrize Eight (Grand Rapids, MI), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC), the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (Durham, NC), Contemporary Art Museum (Raleigh, NC), North Carolina Museum of Art, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (Charlotte, NC), Bard College, Flux Factory (Queens, NY), Fraction Workspace, (Chicago, IL), California State University in Fresno, Wellesley College (MA) and District Fine Arts, (Washington, DC). Her work is represented in the Duke University Rare Book Collection and other private collections. Kirby has a dual degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Studio Art and in Visual Communications in School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
