Rapt Gifts 

MA Exhibition

April 9-16, 2021 

Gallery 7

Mosse Humanities Building

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Artist Statement:

 

As an artist, I work in limited edition multiples and repeat patterns to engage with concepts of scarcity and infinity. Both are tools used to evaluate land as well as detach it from cyclical time, reflecting a binary logic of possession and dispossession. 

 

Rapt Gifts is a performance of wrapping purchased objects with paper decorated by patterns designed and executed as fine art prints. To be able to give something, you have to be able to first own it. Then giving becomes a charitable act of generosity. In radical contrast, the tradition of offering I learned from my Chippewa Cree and other Native family acts as a practice to keep relations in balance. 

 

I offer you a piece of patterned wrapping paper to use. Please take one. Touch the shape and weight of commodity as you parcel it. Where does it come from and who does it belong to?