KRISTEN LETTS KOVAK (Pittsburgh, PA), Out of Order
JO-ANN MORGAN (Surfside Beach, SC), Comfort Quilts: Remembering the Innocent
April 22 – May 25
Kristen Letts Kovak uses the medium of paint to investigate the precarious states of resolution that is a direct outgrowth of living with a rare chronic illness. With these lushly colored abstract paintings on wood panels, Kovak maintains a threadbare link to her background in her representational art background. She writes, her "artworks investigate connections between visual, perceptual and cognitive patterning....us[ing] surface articulations to explore the interplay of representation and abstraction-- estranging the familiar and naturalizing the non-objective." Kovak is faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, and earned her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Jo-Ann Morgan’s stitched fabric quilts reflect contemporary social issues, including gun violence and immigration.  Through the medium, Morgan creates compositions that are “familiar and approachable … to address provocative topics related to social justice and inequality. Art can be a way to process events and experiences that are almost too much to bear.” Morgan is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Art History at Western Illinois University, and earned her PhD from University of California, Los Angeles.  Her quilts have been exhibited across the US and featured in such publications as Fiber Arts Now.

Left to right: Jo-Ann Morgan, Elegy for Elijah, 2021, stitched fabric; Kristen Lett Kovak, Fog in the Cosmos, 2021, oil on wood panel