Description

Kinship Compositions works by Margaret Jacobs Opening Reception / Meet the Artists: Friday, November 22 / 5-8pm Exhibit runs: November 22 - January 28

Artist Statement: As a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Tribe, Margaret Jacobs' culture inspires her to create pieces charged with power, strength, and beauty. Her work celebrates Indigenous culture with a bold, powerful aesthetic. She believes in the importance of objects and their power to relay narratives. Her artistic practice is motivated by learning, exploration, and growth, along with the compulsion to create.

As an Indigenous artist, Margaret sees her work as a way to reclaim and learn about her Mohawk culture, values, and ancestral knowledge, as well as a way to learn about her immediate familial narratives and knowledge. The viewer is also invited to learn; to break stereotypes and misconceptions about native peoples and to share accurate and contemporary narratives that show native peoples not as something of the past, but as living, thriving, contemporary peoples.

Margaret melds historical narratives with personal narratives so layers of storytelling develop in my work. "My 'Old Growth' series intertwines recognizable ironworkers' tools with cultural and familial influential plants and objects found in nature. In this series, I am giving a direct visual reference to the history of the Mohawk high steel workers that built skyscrapers in every US city while simultaneously intermingling plants that remind me of my childhood and family." Margaret uses steel for her sculpture and powder coated brass in her jewelry, developing organic textures and surfaces.

At first, the work is quiet and subdued, but layers emerge the longer a piece is explored. The viewer is gifted the opportunity to participate in the creation of visual narratives of the multiplicity and complexity of human experiences.