Katy Coakley
Contributing Writer
The O’Connor Art Gallery at Dominican is featuring a new artistic exhibition Tending/Tender that celebrates the diverse artwork created by three independent artists.
All artists were contacted through the gallery’s curator Jennifer Mannebach to have their work on display.
The gallery’s colorful sculptures, photographs, paintings, and more are on the fourth floor of Lewis Hall.
Artist and educator Noelle Garcia described the influence behind her creations of modified medicine bottles covered with beads and thread.
“I made the bottles to cover the medicine bottles I received,” said Garcia. “I have a lot of health problems.”
Garcia said that it is common in indigenous cultures to take a mass-produced product and cover it in different beads.
“I have used the same technique to make the beaded bottles,” said Garcia. “My process behind the beaded bottles relates to concepts of race.”
She stated how the beads represent her indigenous culture as well as honoring communities of color and military veterans suffering from diseases.
Garcia is also a teaching artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a professor at National Louis University.
Photographer Lois Bielefeld explained how she wanted her body of work “Commit to Memory” to feature her parents.
“I started photographing with my parents regularly in the late summer of 2020,” said Bielefeld. “I would go stay with them because I was living in California at the time. There are two voices that have titled the work. It creates a triangulation of voice.”
She mentioned how her, and her mother’s differences, are seen through the photographs. Her mother is an Evangelical Christian while Bielefeld is an atheist.
“Because my parents and I are so ideologically different, I was really interested in creating this space through making to get to know each other,” said Bielefeld. “We could bypass our differences.”
She said that the hardest part of creating her 2020 art was trying to complete it while going through events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We couldn’t talk about it,” said Bielefeld. “When we did, we just end up crying at the end. It was so painful.”
Bielefeld has had several solo screenings at the James Watrous Gallery in Wisconsin, and the International Center of Photography in New York.
Artist Tulika Ladsariya said that her glazed stoneware ceramic piece titled “Moon-Rotis (12 Years as a Foreigner)” was made during the COVID-19 pandemic and completed after six months of work.
“With my clay work, I do tend to overwork and caress my pieces a lot while I am working,” said Ladsariya. “It’s extremely therapeutic for me to make.”
She explained how the artwork connects to her native country, India.
“I’ve lived away from India for close to 12 years since I moved to the United States,” said Ladsariya. “My voice is largely put of an immigrant, who has left behind a family and everything that is familiar in terms of language, people and skin tone.”
Ladsariya has also been exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center and Riverside Arts Center.
“Tending/Tender” opened on Jan. 18, 2023, and all artworks can be seen on display until Feb. 24.
