Brianna McIntyre has been selected for a unique residency with Women & Their Work.
The two-month residency begins October 12. McIntyre will have 24/7 access to the Women & Their Work gallery as a work space. The residency also includes a $1,500 honorarium and a solo exhibition at a future date.
Like all arts non-profits, Women & Their Work saw its original plans for 2020 upended by the pandemic. Then, with the lease running out on its current space at the end of the year, in July the organization announced that it had purchased a building of its own.
With just a few months left at its current home, and its prior exhibition schedule already re-arranged by COVID-19, Women & Their Work leaders decided it was the right opportunity to provide an artist with space and support during such a challenging time, said Program Director Diane Sikes.
Newly based in Austin, McIntyre focuses on crafting objects and ephemera that communicate narratives of duality, precariousness, and her experiences as a Black woman. One of her goals as a maker is to take materials out of their comfort zone in order to push their structural qualities and intended use.
“To be a designer, a scientist, an activist, and an artist simultaneously is the cross-section I want to explore for this residency, and for my creative practice moving forward,” said McIntyre in a statement. “My goal at Women & Their Work is to experiment with textile waste as a viable, usable, buildable material. Using a previous bent lamination shelf design as a template, my goal is to use layered textile waste to create experimental structured forms that show the visual continuity and material evolution of this design.”
“As a woman of color, I use my art to provide a voice for a majority women workforce whose labor, like the environment, is often exploited. It is a constant reminder that craft in the hands of women is often undervalued and under appreciated. I like to layer charged objects within my projects to complicate the narrative and the material read.”
McIntyre has BFA in Furniture Design and Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
While McIntyre’s studio time in the gallery is not open to the public, Sikes said that there will be “on-going programming associated with the residency that allows McIntyre an opportunity to share her creative process with an audience and provide them insight into her technique and use of materials. These programs will probably mostly be virtual and will include ongoing conversations with the artist and an active Instagram presence featuring images of her work in progress.”
