CAITLIN GILL:
NATURE VS. NURTURE

Caitlin Gill uses printmaking, sculpting, drawing, painting, collage, and fiber to explore ideas of identity, femininity, and the divergence between human and animal. Evoking ideas of discomfort and repulsion, she encourages viewers to engage with how unnatural being human can sometimes feel.

In this exhibition, Gill explores the notion of femininity and its relationship to nature, Western culture, and women. Women are continuously linked to nature historically and culturally yet are refused the most natural basic animal instincts and acts (territory, aggression, fitness) as these are characterized as unfeminine, or inherently masculine. This contradiction plagues the artist and her work explores these binaries attempting to
reconcile how to be simultaneously feminine and natural.

Using traditional craft materials and skills such as sewing, felting, crocheting, ceramics, scrapbook paper, doilies, stencils, and stamps, juxtaposed with foreground imagery of larvae, dead or decomposing animals, and other uncomfortable imagery, Gill attempts to reconcile the feminine exterior and the female interior. Just as nature can be simultaneously beautiful and grotesque so can women.

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This exhibition is on view at Gormley Gallery from September 20 through October 15, 2021.

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Visit the Events page for information about the artist's reception, gallery talk, and other programming associated with this exhibition.