Dates: March 31 – May 5, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, March 31 5:30-7:30 with remarks by the artist at 6:00
The Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery at The University of Dallas presents the exhibition: Jennifer Arnold: A Layered Space: Inside Out (v.4)
Through a series of installations, Jennifer Arnold offers viewers an opportunity to peer inside an altered view of her domestic space and invites the audience to examine personal belongings as both relics and symbols. Through photography, collage, sculpture, and most importantly the Canvas Peels, Arnold documents and presents objects, architecture, and nature from within and near her home. The Canvas Peels are her most unique works, synthesizing photographic imaging and sculptural objects, a technique she developed in 2009. These flat representations of objects intend to represent the feeling of emptiness and abandonment she felt when she arrived home to find that her husband of nearly 16 years had left, leaving behind a half empty closet.
“We were 4 months away from celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. I came home from work one day to find the most jarring scene: the closet, which we shared for most of our life together, was suddenly half empty. Hangers dangled like a harrowing wind chime revealing the void.
I was left.”
Now in its fourth iteration, A Layered Space presents the work as an immersive installation. Translucent, plasticky, delicate, fabric-like images are molded into soft sculptures with armatures made of wood, wire and other elements combined with found objects to create a dizzying experience between reality and fantasy. Current work explores a deeper narrative of the artist’s reality, including the closet, trees, plants, and most importantly, the swimming pool.
Born in Louisiana in 1977, Jennifer Arnold was raised in northwest Florida on the Gulf Coast. She currently resides on Padre Island in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she has maintained a studio practice since receiving her MFA from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in 2009.
Group and solo exhibitions include Islander Gallery and Weil Gallery (Corpus Christi, TX), Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery – UTPB (Odessa, TX), Vignette Art Fair (2018 Dallas, TX), Presa House (2020 San Antonio, TX), Art Museum of South Texas (2020 Corpus Christi, TX), and Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery – UD (2023 Dallas).
Arnold serves as Co-Chair for the Board of Directors, and Chair of the Exhibitions Committee for K Space Contemporary; a 501(c)3 non-profit contemporary art space in downtown Corpus Christi. She is also a rotating adjunct professor (Photography, Art & Society, and First Year Seminar), as well as the academic advisor for the arts at TAMUCC.
\Visit www.udallas.edu/gallery for more information.
Selections from The Closet, 2020
Canvas Peels, hangar, wood
Jennifer Arnold
Red Table, 2009
Canvas Peels, grommets, welding wire
The Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery is located in the Art History Building at the corner of Gorman Drive and Novinski Circle on the University of Dallas campus at 1845 E. Northgate Drive in Irving. The gallery, which is part of the university’s Haggerty Art Village, is free and open on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 5 p.m. For more gallery information visit: udallas.edu/gallery or call 972-721-5087.
The University of Dallas, located in a metropolitan area of nearly 7 million people, is a leading Catholic university widely recognized for academic excellence by well-known publications, organizations, and accrediting bodies. It offers distinctive undergraduate and graduate programs in the liberal arts, business, and ministry that are characterized by academic rigor, an exceptional faculty, and a commitment to shaping principled leaders in the Catholic intellectual tradition. For more information, visit udallas.edu
