Louise Erdrich imagines that one’s life is like sitting under a tree with the apples falling all around you. These are the gifts, and they are to be tasted. A dear friend of mine called me a few years back and said, “Hmmm, you need to meet my new neighbor.” The neighbor was the extraordinary talent Carmen Mardonez!! Talk about gifts falling all around me. I have been enamored of her work, am delighted to watch her practice thrive, and was honored when she accepted my invite last Fall to be artist-in-residence at the Tricksters & Transformation exhibit.

I am looking forward to seeing Carmen’s latest: a solo show at Building Bridges Art Exchange (BBAX), a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to cultivating cultural understanding through the arts.

Curated by Marisa Caichiolo

Exhibition November 2022 - January 2023 (closing date/time not listed; please check with the gallery.)

Chilean artist Carmen Mardonez’s body of work, particularly of her latest exhibition “Unspeakable Dreams, Smothering Desires,” will usher art lovers into a dream-like world of healing through a stunning art installation featuring 30 recycled bed sheets and over 50 used pillow covers. 

In Mardonez’s own words, “embroidering is like opening a portal to the suppressed and liberating the repressed. It’s a powerful exorcism. The process and the product are cathartic and enveloping. With every stitch, there is a new emergence, something organic coming to life from nothing, constructing its niche, overpopulating the surroundings, mutating in unpredictable ways.” “Dreams and desires that are let to go out become overwhelming on their own… but in ways worth suffering and dealing with,” she adds. 

Link through to Curator Marisa Caicholo’s insightful write-up.