Alexandra Carter | Christiana Updegraff: Tether

Together the artists explore their experience of the female body through a lens of both fecundity and loss, of excess and containment. Scale and material play a pivotal role in both artists’ work, defying expectations with installations that confront and engage the viewer’s body. Both of them mothers, the title Tether alludes to the sensation of being inextricably tethered to the body of others — to their children certainly but also to partners, to the varying social expectations of artist / mother / woman.

Tether also examines their technical processes: Updegraff merges a multitude of materials together in her sculptures, using the delicacy of substances like thread and paper, then shackling them with industrial touches of cement, wood or metal. Carter works in a similar way with imagery, building up layers of images and melding them within her paintings, tethering them all back into one space onto one surface.

Opening reception April 8 from 6-9 p.m.; preview rsvp info@oolongallery.com for April 6 from 5-8 p.m.