Bold colors, unexpected textures and works that span scale—from immense to miniature—evoke introspection. Collages of newspaper clippings and magazine images from times past are presented alongside textile installations and mundane items—think: tuna cans and childhood toys. Raveling is an exhibition of dualities.

As an Indigenous and Latinx trans woman, Maria Villaseñor-Marchal uses soft sculpture, weaving and fiber painting to create fantasy worlds wherein she escapes confusing, isolating and traumatic experiences. Her abstract work takes shape through craft techniques and mixed media consisting of found and unconventional materials—from tiny doll hands and feet and pieces of porcelain to alpaca and Navajo sheep wool.

James Hosking is a queer lens-based visual artist whose work resurfaces archival LGBTQ+ ephemera. Inspired by the text of found personals dating from 1966-1981, he turns marginalized material into collages that are compelling and incisive. Deriving from a space between the imagined and the real, his work reinvents an underground visual history.

Both artists find purpose by excavating and tying together the common threads that bind us with ourselves, our community and humanity at large. Through weaving, layering, unraveling and reassembling, they explore the ambiguous dualities of intimacy and loneliness, belonging and alienation. Raveling reveals that it takes courage and bravery to explore the vulnerabilities inherent in defining one’s personal identity and the universal search for connection with others—and that peeling back the layers is the only way one ultimately becomes their authentic self.

James Hosking’s contribution to this exhibition is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

María Villaseñor-Marchal’s work was partially supported through her fellowship with the Luminarts Cultural Foundation.