Texas Tough: Jill Bedgood – Book Of Hours: Intervention

Texas Tough: Jill Bedgood – Book Of Hours: Intervention

Jun 6–Aug 24, 2013

June 6 – August 24, 2013
Gallery 4

Featuring Jill Bedgood, Amita Bhatt, Sharon Kopriva, and Sherry Owens

Texas Tough features four renowned artists: Jill Bedgood, Amita Bhatt, Sharon Kopriva, and Sherry Owens. Texas Tough is Blue Starʼs first all-women exhibition since Arte Latina: ROAR, in April 2008. This exhibition, which runs from June 6, 2013 to August 24, 2013, includes artists from Austin, Dallas and Houston representing multiple visual arts disciplines.This exhibition was made possible by an NEA grant and the support of DCCD.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Referencing small devotional books used daily and as yearly calendars of spiritual practice, the installation “Books of Hours: Interventions” meditates on medical intrusions of the body to heal an illness. Each “book” is unique containing a relief of an object used in an “intervention” of the flesh or mind, or ones used in requesting an “intercession” from the universe, or those that provoke a memory providing solace. Objects include, for example, a needle, IV regulator, religious medallion, drugs, swab, bottle lid, key. In others, the book pages are manipulated to indicate the effects time has on the natural world. The white marble appearance speaks to memorialization of the individual, of medical procedures, of simple objects one contemplates visually and uses daily. The books are a collective experience; life is woven from our sensory encounters with objects, making them valued. Books of Hours acts also as a “memento mori”, a contemplative reminder of our own mortality.