Wild and Precious
Image: Wild and Precious, digital collage, 2024. Amanda McInerney and Lana Waldrep Appl
Amanda McInerney and Lana Waldrep Appl
Exhibition Dates: May 24th - June 22nd, 2024
Opening Reception:Friday, May 24th 7-10 pm
About
The exhibition title Wild and Precious is taken from Mary Oliver’s Summer Day where she asks readers to consider what they “plan to do with [their] one wild and precious life.” Amanda McInerney and Lana Waldrep Appl’s exhibition poses a similar question as both artists make work that circle around issues of life and mortality and a thirst for stillness and quiet in the face of life that moves so quickly, bombards us with distraction, and too often just slips away.
Amanda Linn McInerney’s work explores themes of mortality, the societal pressure to be self-reliant, the amorphous definitions of family and sexuality, and the existential problem of what it means to be alone. In the face of these complex issues, she grounds herself by making repetitive, meditative motions through sculptural elements, printmaking, and stitching on her mixed media works and by connecting to the natural world. In nature, she finds solace in the process of growth, decay and rebirth and continually faces the question: What did we do in our unique and precious existence in this world?
Being very influenced by the natural world, she has become particularly fascinated with the life cycle of the Agave Americana, commonly known as the Century Plant. This plant grows for decades, blooms once, then dies shortly afterward. By harvesting and preserving the remains of this plant to create her work, she creates a visual afterlife to pose the question: what will become of us once the last person who says our name dies?
After her cancer diagnosis, she faced this question of enduring legacy and felt conflicted about her comfort in independence and solitude when feeling societal pressure to have a traditional nuclear family. In making her work, by piecing different elements together, and by working with materials that challenge preconceptions, she aspires to find a synthesis between aloneness and loneliness, an expanded definition of family, and gain a new perspective that will contribute to her growth as a constantly evolving being.
Lana Waldrep Appl’s work has long prized lone viewers and sought to highlight the complexity of simple things. She aims to make work that seeks and creates and silence. In a world that moves quickly, she pursues stillness. Her work quietly resists the disembodied everywhereness of the Internet and social media by creating paintings , who in their physicality and presence, wish to be seen in person and with time.
Following long weeks and months at home during the pandemic shut down and a difficult pregnancy with twins, her gaze turned inward. For the past few years, she has been exploring domestic space and the way we steward our things through the creation of still lifes. These still lifes consist of plants, handmade ceramics, utilitarian objects, children’s toys, objects that were once of use but are now broken and have entered into the world of “things”, and single-use plastics that she has a hard time limiting to just one life. There is a subtle acknowledgment that often the more precious the object, the more it is bound to time and decay. On the other hand, single-use plastic—trash—will last nearly forever.
All objects in her paintings are rendered life-sized, reminding the viewer of their body. Scratches, scrapes, and piped-on impasto emphasize the hand and elicit a sympathetic, tactile response.
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Amanda Linn McInerney is a Texas-based visual artist who works primarily in printmaking, sculpture and recently, digital media. Her work is influenced by the natural world and its cycle of growth, change, death and renewal, and how this cycle informs or rejects the experiences we have in society surrounding lifestyle, mortality, and sustainability. She has contributed to and shown work with artist nonprofits and mentoring programs like the Women Printmakers of Austin, Chula League and The Contemporary Austin. She has been a member of ICOSA since 2015 and has continued to focus on the collective’s fiscal sustainability and longevity in the local art community. In addition to her artistic work, Amanda is also an educator at Austin Screen Printing Cooperative.
Lana Waldrep Appl is an artist, educator, and mother who lives and works in San Marcos, Texas. She is a self-confessed introvert and lover of paint. Her work highlights and prizes the quiet, anonymous, and overlooked. Lana has a MFA in painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in studio art from The University of Texas at Austin. She has participated in residencies at Vermont Studio Center and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Her work has been shown both locally and nationally and been featured in publications such as New American Paintings. Lana has been a member of ICOSA Collective since 2018. She has had the joy and honor of teaching so many amazing up and coming artists at Texas State University since 2010.