If you happen to be in Cincinnati, Ohio July 14-August 11, my work will be on view in the upcoming exhibition "In Memoriam", at Manifest Gallery Creative Research and Drawing Center. Public opening July 14, 6-9pm.

IN MEMORIAM
Art About Loss

In a larger sense the creation of any art object is a form of externalized memory. Sometimes, however, the direct purpose of the artwork is to serve as a vehicle for a specific remembrance, a totem of loss, or a symbol of transition from a time, place, or state of being that is no longer accessible. As such, these objects become infused with more life—more substance—than they may at first appear to represent. Whether through abstract symbols, illustrations of the memorialized, or poetic conceptualizations of the idea of remembrance, Manifest asked artists to submit works made with these concepts in mind. This project was open to wide interpretation of the theme, and was not restricted to traditional definitions of the term 'in memoriam' (such as may relate to obituaries and epitaphs).

In graduate school, I once made a scroll from a scrap of linen. Irises, a Greek symbol for the link between heaven and earth, were equally spaced in a long, single row. The flower blossoms, painted in various colors, stood like living monuments against a pale, milky sky. Their roots, etched out of darkness, morphed into corpse-like forms below. The concept was this: We are connected to those who have gone before us. We share our lives with our dead. We carry them, and they carry us. I titled the scroll Prayer for People in Cemeteries.

Two years ago, when we buried my mother alongside my twin brother, I remembered this prayer. I stood as a living body among other living bodies, our feet dense and full of blood on a field crowded with death, and watched her, too, go into the earth. And what now? I asked myself. What of us who had assembled there on the morning frost? What responsibility did we have to this person we were burying? What were we to let go of, and what were we to safeguard within us?

If you happen to be in or around Ashland, OH in September, stop in at Coburn Gallery and see my work included in this exhibition addressing the concept of loss and longing in our lives. Installation and reception photos to follow. 

Sharing a Soul

by Martha Cheng

Images by John Hook

People used to ask fraternal twins Emily and Ross McIlroy, “What does it feel like to be a twin?” They would look at each other and say, “What does it feel like not to be one?” For 24 years, being one half of a set of twins was the only thing Emily knew. And then she lost her other half.

There’s a fascination with twins that exists everywhere, from playgrounds to psychological studies: We want to know what it’s like to have a twin, how they are the same, how they are different, what this unique relationship says about nature versus nurture. We mine twins’ lives, digging for clues about our own. But what happens when one twin dies? Is it similar to the death of another family member—another sibling, a child, a spouse? Or is it unlike the loss of any other companion?

"People would rather feel anything but helpless," a psychologist specializing in trauma research recently said to me. "They'd rather feel angry than helpless. They'd rather feel guilty than helpless. They'd rather feel anything but helpless."

Assuming that this shared, extraordinary dread of helplessness is indeed humanity's most potent emotional fear, how are we ever to move past the fortress of feelings that guard against it? And how, if we somehow manage to achieve this disarmament, do we deal with the desperate sense of helplessness once we've allowed ourselves to feel it? How can one arrive at a place of strength and transformation from within utter inability, rather than be enfeebled by it?

Sky Burial, the largest and most labor intensive piece I’ve been working on for Artists of Hawai‘i 2015, began at a place called Brush Creek Ranch, near Saratoga, Wyoming. As one of eight Artists in Residence at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, I spent a month during the summer of 2012 exploring the Platte River Valley and working in one of the foundation’s creekside studios. When the artists arrived in early July there was a hummingbird feeder hanging outside the kitchen window, and every now and then a hummingbird would come to drink. Everyone thought it was the sweetest thing, seeing them hovering and darting around out there with their teeny wings and their iridescent fairy feathers.

In her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World, author and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams defines “bewilderness” as “the place where the mind wanders without certainties.” These images document some of my recent perambulations through wilderness and “bewilderness,” as I look to Nature for an archive of forms, bodies, energies and processes that mirror my own internal territory. Offering moments of beauty, violence, power and fragility, the subjects of my photographs often guide my drawing and painting process, and have provided a point-of-entry into my work for Artists of Hawai‘i 2015.

Presented By: CSN Performing Arts Center

“Emily McIlroy: WILDS”

"WILDS" Image, Detail, Mixed Media, Emily McIlroy

The College of Southern Nevada Fine Arts Gallery will present a solo exhibit of mixed media works by Emily McIlroy, faculty at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, the Honolulu Museum of Art School and the Hawai`i State Art Museum. “Emily McIlroy: WILDS” will begin Friday, February 6 and will run through Friday, March 20, 2015. Ms. McIlroy will be available to the public and will present a Gallery Talk on Friday, February 6 at 1:30 p.m. in the CSN Fine Arts Gallery.

Thirteen of Hawai‘i’s most savvy women artists are showing together at Pegge Hopper Gallery in Chinatown.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa offers this glimpse of the work.

The "13 Women" are:

Reiko Brandon, Allyn Bromley, Kandi Everett, Sally French, Lynda Hess, Kloe Kang, Emily McIlroy, Mary Mitsuda, Marcia Morse, Esther Shimazu, Yida Wang, Suzanne Wolfe, and Maile Yawata.

Wilds

Emily McIlroy
Lower Traylor Gallery

Reception:
November 2, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Artist Talk:
November 3, 12:00 p.m.

Exhibition Information:
Since the death of my twin brother in May 2007, I have endured suspension between a world I cannot yet enter, and a world to which I no longer feel I belong. Once-fixed horizons became unmoored, passages between points in time collapsed, and concealed specters suddenly emerged. My current research and studio practice centers on exploring these spatial and temporal dimensions of grief. Creating large-scale works on paper, I invoke forces and life forms of the natural world as metaphors for personal and universal experiences of loss, as well as on-going processes of healing. Emerging froma repetitive cycle of rendering and erasure, the creation of my pieces parallels an endless pursuit of reconciling past with present, duration with collapse, disjunction with continuity.