Erin Mckenna

Erin McKenna is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in sculpture and textiles. Through a feminist lens, playful “misuse,” and celebration, she makes work that dismantles stereotypes and complicates binaries of embellishment and construction. McKenna received a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in 2012 and an MFA from University of Michigan in 2020. McKenna has attended New York Studio Residency Program (2011), ACRE (2013), and Shiro Oni Residency (2019).  Her work has been exhibited internationally including SkyLab (Columbus, Ohio), ACRE (Chicago), Harold J. Miossi (San Luis Obispo, California), and Shiro Oni (Fujioka, Japan).  She currently lives and works in her studio and garden in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

On the work featured in this exhibition:

holding pattern (noun): a state or period of no progress or change.

What patterns can we see repeated every day, month, year? In our society and history? What patterns are disguised? How do we use these ideas of patterns to generalize others—perhaps incorrectly? Can we train our eye (and mind) to see the inconsistencies and shifts of patterns? How can we disrupt and complicate boundaries we think are so rigid and immovable?

Image

Erin McKenna, holding pattern

Trampoline frame, springs, nylon, spandex, grommets

204” x 168” x 180”

Courtesy of the artist