Mika Cali, Kim Hill, and Diana Jean Puglisi weave together personal and discovered histories through the works on view in Storytell-her (storytell-HER). Viewers are invited to explore narrative expression through textile-based works, both functional and nonfunctional, that utilize various techniques challenging cultural and social norms.
Working with artisan weavers in the Mid Atlas Mountains of North Africa, Mika Cali’s unique symbols are woven into tapestries and heirloom quality Moroccan rugs. She explores the laws of physics, energetic frequencies and the concept that neural pathways in the brain are the key to change and positive manifestation. Her symbols serve as a totem or mantra, something you see everyday to remind you of that in which you seek to transform.
By Artist Mika Cali
Kim Hill is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on textiles and fiber, which is applied onto canvas, wood, linen or metal. Her work bridges generational gaps and breaks generational curses by translating Indigenous folklore into contemporary settings. Hill uses natural and synthetic fibers, concrete, recycled plastic, yarn, beads and synthetic hair to engage the viewer and challenge historical tropes used to vilify descendants of the African Diaspora. Her work is an unapologetic offering of restorative justice and reclaims Black liberation.
By Artist Kim Hill
Through a lexicon of propagated sewing tools, mutated fig leaves, reproductions of heirlooms, and abstract hints of clothing Diana Jean Puglisi creates sensorial forms that live as surrogates for female bodies and their parts and functions. She uses her experience to create feminist textile-based works, emphasizing the idea that personal problems are still, now more than ever, political problems with respect to bodily autonomy.
