Chicago-Based Artist Cass Davis To Exhibit At New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
The University of Southern Indiana New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is proud to present Revelations featuring installation, sculpture, textile and video works by Chicago-based artist Cass Davis. Incorporating familiar rural materials such as corn and hay, and spaces like the tent revival, roadside billboard, and town parade, Davis investigates American mythologies, spiritual euphoria, and queer realities as well as their own small-town, midwestern roots.
Revelations begins September 10 and runs through November 5, opening with a reception from 4-6 p.m. September 10 in conjunction with New Harmony Second Saturday in September. An artist’s talk will be held at 3 p.m. on September 9 in Kleymeyer Hall (Liberal Arts Center 0101) on the USI campus.
In this solo exhibition, featuring new and existing work, Davis exhumes collective and personal history and questions perceptions of history—they specifically look at an excavation of Small Town America. Titling the show after the final apocalyptic Biblical book, Davis explores a multiplicity of transformational experiences and revelations. Their work seeks to ask the question, “What is to be revived, and what is it to be dismantled?â€Â Revelations implies the removal of the veil and a revelation of truth and embodies the duality of tragedy and ecstasy found in the human search for transcendence. Sifting through archival materials, Davis seeks to uncover what has been hidden.
The installation, sculptural and textile works in Revelations utilizes the textures and imagery of rural landscapes. Hand-woven Jacquard textiles featuring archival images allow for a revisitation of complex histories. Hay bales sourced from local farms, natural materials and roadside architecture evoke a sense of familiarity and curiosity and conjure the memory embedded in the land.
Davis’s solo shows include Out of Time at Engage Projects, HEARTLAND at G-CADD St. Louis, No Body on Earth But Yours with the Chicago Underground Film Festival, and Of Roses and Jessamine at SITE Galleries in Chicago, Illinois. Davis has shown in group exhibitions and screenings around the country and has been awarded the Praxis Fiber Arts Residency; HATCH Residency; Oxbow Artist’s MFA Residency; Roger Brown Artist’s Residency; IOTO Residency; and the Shapiro Center Eager Research Grant. They also were a lecturing faculty in the Fiber and Material Studies department at SAIC.
The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, an outreach partner of the University of Southern Indiana, is located at 506 Main Street in New Harmony, Indiana. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, call 812-682-3156 or visit USI.edu/nhgallery.
