TD / 04.16–04.25, 2021
emerge
Ciaran McQuiston uses papermaking, printmaking, writing, and sculpture as a way to visually answer the question, “What is the mind made of?” She considers the inextricable connections between the body and mind through visceral, site-specific artworks that muddle material information just as memories, ideas and nutrients are digested by the mind and body.
it is a place that holds magical memories for me—the mythic kind that only children can create
emerge is a culmination of works based in hand-papermaking, using paper pulp I made out of an invasive grass that grows in both the greater Detroit area and in Grand Marais, Minnesota (and collected in both places). This material is, like the memories I hold, the common thread between these two places for me: one I call home now, and one my mother's family called home for many years. I went on to visit Grand Marais often with my mother until her grandparents passed away when I was in my teens. It is a place that holds magical memories for me — the mythic kind that only children can create.
These works are a collection of reflections in paper created during and following my residency at Talking Dolls, when I drove to Grand Marais to visit remembered outdoor spaces and collect this grass to make paper. This was done in the midst of a time when I could not actually see my mother due to the covid pandemic. With vaccines on the rise, we hope to reunite soon... but at the time of this opening, it will have been over a year and four months since we were last together.