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Christa Maiwald, Sky Cake (Angel Food), archival pigment print, 16" x 20", edition 5.[/caption]
The Sara Nightingale Gallery will present Monica Banks and Christa Maiwald: True Confections on Thursday, August 6 with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through September 3.
True Confections is a multimedia exhibition featuring sculpture, installation, photography, embroidery, performance, and edible sculpture. As mothers who are responsible for nurturing others and maintaining domestic life, Ms. Maiwald and Ms. Banks explore the surreal and emotional aspects of feeding others, honoring occasions, and witnessing life's transitions inside and outside the home.
Ms. Banks’ sculptures of miniature porcelain figures—humans as well as bees, mice, birds and teacups—depict organic forms on the threshold between life and death or figures who are suffering. In True Confections, Ms. Banks creates porcelain cakes and cake stands as pedestals for her sculptures. The cakes are an homage to her experiences, which include the joys and playfulness of domesticity as well as the cruelty of nature, the despair of loss. Other works included in the exhibition are her swings, "Abject Pottery", which are playground swings crafted to hold miniature distressed dinnerware, a tribute to the fleeting nature of childhood.
Ms. Maiwald will exhibit work from her ongoing Landscape Cake Series, in which she bakes elaborate cakes, then photographs them in nature. She will also present a cake performance at the opening reception. These performances, now becoming a convention in her practice, investigate the ritual of sharing her freshly baked cakes/confections with strangers. They also explore themes of consumption, ephemerality and craft, as well as gender roles. The exhibition will also include work from Ms. Maiwald’s hand-embroidered Cat Series, in which cats and humans engage in activities ranging from the sweet to the feral.
In addition to the opening, the artists’ will offer a special artists’ talk on the exhibit on Sunday, August 16 at 11 a.m.
For more information, visit saranightingale.com.
