HUB Gallery to showcase textile work by Laura Marsh

UNIVERSITY PARK — The HUB-Robeson Galleries are excited to present “Unsolicited Advice,” an installation of drawings and textile works by Laura Marsh.

The installation will be available to view in the HUB Gallery through July 16.

Marsh is a textile artist whose works consistently address the need for humanitarian acceptance and systemic social change. Messages are positive, pensive and poignant.

Through tactile objects such as spheres, flags and banners inscribed with poetic humanitarian texts, Marsh creates art installations as social experiences. Her arrangements offer engagement to address larger societal issues about class, gender and feminism. This combination of qualities is meant to transport one into another world where different possibilities exist, with objects to consider and sculptures to interact with. Her work is simultaneously humorous, quirky and playful.

“Is it safe to say at one point in your life that you have both given and received unsolicited advice? How did those experiences make you feel?” These are questions Marsh asks as a textile artist of humanitarian messages, which are meant to be open enough for anyone to consider and at the same time ask you to reflect on how you find yourself in the work.

“Unsolicited Advice,” the title of her solo exhibition, is a phrase taken from a small banner included in the exhibition that reads in its entirety, “She went back to the office, and unsolicited advice followed.”

The piece is both autobiographical and responding to gender equality issues in American society.

Other works discuss the desire for future generations to own homes and other assets. Marsh explores the idea that unsolicited advice is often incomplete, not fully considering the person on the receiving end.

As an artist, Marsh combated racism, homophobia and divorce during her upbringing and early adulthood in Montrose. These experiences shaped her humanitarian practice, which is rooted in acceptance, textiles and the gesture of line and making and other human connections. The artist has a longstanding commitment to other artists and institutions and regularly teaches art development and textile workshops. In her work, she quotes humanist advocates and authors such as Gloria Steinem, Maya Angelou and Cesar Chavez.

“It is at times indescribable when the people you worked with before a life change treat you differently in varying ways as you continue to earn an income for your family,” Marsh said. “Your goals are the same, but a path that seemed vastly open before has suddenly started to become constricted. One feels oddly claustrophobic socially, yet you live on from this forever changed.”

Marsh’s work interlaces with her family history. She is a descendent of two generations who practiced in the craft and industry of sewing.

Marsh believes in the do-it-yourself approach to making work that is accessible and attainable. Organically exploring material processes such as embroidery and weaving, Marsh’s art elicits her familial memory of tradition and yet her funky patterns, quirky palette and incisive phrases articulate a visual language of the contemporary.

In this, Marsh is well positioned as an assured feminist textile artist. She regards her practice as multilayered and transformative while supporting the activation of site-specific installations that celebrate the individuality of the viewer.

Marsh encourages viewers to confront their own image through active participation in exploring tactile sensations, taking selfies and reflecting on the poeticism of her hand-worked texts. She invites you to experience her work firsthand at the HUB Gallery.

Marsh received her master’s degree from Yale University School of Art and a bachelor’s from the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has exhibited nationally at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art, Jane Lombard Gallery, Printed Matter, Field Projects, Newman Popiashvili Gallery andTilton Gallery in New York, and Dotfiftyone Gallery, Locust Projects and Deering Estate in Miami.

Marsh has been an artist in residence at Oolite Arts (Miami Beach, Florida), Mana Contemporary (Miami) and Siena Art Institute (Siena, Italy). She is currently represented by Dotfiftyone Gallery.

Marsh has also led study abroad programs in Italy to produce immersive and historical installations in collaboration with the Art and Design Department at the University of New Haven and the Culinary Art Program in Tuscany. She is a member of the Fiber Artists of Miami Association, where she is curating a community green space called Artnezs, which stands for arts embodiment through sculpture and performance. These community efforts are the result of studying with feminist historian Rita Goodman associate professor at Cleveland Institute of Art, and working as a professional artist for over 16 years.

Class, student organization and office visits are welcomed. Email [email protected] with inquiries.