This Mother’s Cave Gabrielle Constantine and Rowan Howe
October 7th - 28th, 2023 On View Saturdays 12-6pm through October 28th
This Mother’s Cave is an exhibition of new, collaborative work from Gabrielle Constantine and Rowan Howe. Utilizing the culvert's architecture, the artists transform the cement space into a womb like atmosphere. Continuously swaying from internal to external, the walls layer domestic motifs, thrifted objects, found photographs, wheat pasted paintings and sculptures to create a sticky facade of childhood space, memories, maternal wisdoms and signals of generational traumas. Quilting and collaging materials become a sounding ground or wallpaper for the artists to build upon, creating isolated moments of material and contextual density. This is a sensory installation that employs light, sound, texture, and smell to create a spirituality of sorts, perhaps achieving the same sensibility as catching the scent of someone once known in a new place, transporting you to an embedded memory, if only for a moment.
With-in this mind, nest, womb, shelter, home, cave, Constantine and Howe intertwine a spectrum of what typifies mother, in order to reflect on the multiplicities that arise within this complicated role and namesake.
Gabrielle Constantine (1994) was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she received her double BFA in Sculpture and Fibers and Material studies at the Tyler School of Art (2017). She’s currently living and working in Austin, TX and holds an MFA from The University of Texas of Austin. Growing up in an Armenian community and the restaurant industry has heavily influenced her linguistic, material, and performative decisions surrounding her sculptures, installations, and gatherings.
Rowan Howe (b. 1997) grew up in Chicago, IL with her single mother. Through painting and collage her work speaks to performance and the continuous alteration of memories through the collaging of landscape, found imagery, and the female body. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and recently completed her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Texas at Austin.
