Joan Fitzsimmons, Art History, 2020.1
Curator’s Statement
As I perused hundreds of submissions for what would become the exhibition Embody, it occurred to me that I was essentially viewing living artists' response to our fraught moment. I reviewed the works in early February in preparation for an exhibition in March 2021: the one year anniversary of COVID's known presence here in the United States. So, while this show isn't an exhibition about the pandemic, it is most certainly a reflection of living artists' attempt to grapple with this crisis (and maintain their practice) despite its ongoing repercussions in real time.
The desire for the tangible was resoundingly clear: the impulse to bring the physical into being; to give form to states of being, unsung heroes and unseen actions; and to restore the shapes and bodies that we formerly encountered, touched and experienced with abandon. Embody signals a return to the corporeal in all its fleshy, messy, imprecise and awkward glory. While we are still ensconced in a world dominated by necessary isolation and virtual interactions, these artists labor to remind us that our longing for physicality in real space and time is irrepressible and must be visibly acknowledged.
— Krista Scenna
KATHY CZEPIEL : DAILY NUTMEG
Physical Therapy | March 31, 2021
GAMZE KAZAKOGLU : YALE DAILY NEWS
New exhibition ‘Embody’ opens in the Ely Center of Contemporary Art | March 19, 2021
BRIAN SLATTERY : NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Ely Center Embodies Pandemic Art | March 12, 2021
Liz Albert
Adina Andrus
Sarah Balcombe
Julia Whitney Barnes
Allison Belolan
Laurey Bennett-Levy
Irja Bodén
Constance Brady
Frid Branham
Susan Carr
Cecile Chong
Ann Cofta
Joan Fitzsimmons
Adele Flamand-Browne
Lori Fogg
Morgan Rose Free
Ronald Gonzalez
Kyle Hackett
Meg Hitchcock
Will Holub
Erin Hudak
Mary Janacek
KK Kozik
Soumiya Krishnaswamy
Bonny Leibowitz
Nate Lerner
Jody MacDonald
Adrian Martinez Chavez
Alyssa McClenaghan
Elizabeth Miller
Patricia Miranda
Joy Nagy
Mary Negro
Marcy Palmer
Debra Ramsay
Elizabeth Riley
Karina Rosenstein
Linda Schmidt
Jacqueline Shatz
Rose Silberman-Gorn
Leslie Singer
Amarilis Singh
Elissa Swanger
Amelia Toelke
Theo Trotter
Kelsey Tynik
Victoria van der Laan
Patricia Weise
Cherrie Yu