Artist: Nellie Grey Eckert
Exhibition Title:  you told me once but i forgot
Exhibition Dates: April 3 – 7, 2023
Reception Date:  April 5, 2023 at 4 - 6 pm

Artist Biography

Nellie Grey Eckert (she/her/hers) was born in Durham, North Carolina, where she spent her childhood convincing others to call her by her middle name. After graduating from Coastal Carolina University with dual-BAs and academic minors in Studio Art, Graphic Design, Art History, and Photography, Grey attended the University of South Carolina, where she is currently pursuing an MFA in Studio Art. Her photographic and object-based work investigates the American household; or, more specifically, the domestic conventions that the Carolinian South imposes upon its feminine, familially-bound populace.

Artist’s Statement

you told me once but i forgot involves a stereotypically feminine artform: appropriated cross stitching, pre-existing ephemera that are, even still, entrenched within gendered ideologies. Subtracting specific textual elements from their surface transforms lyrical clichés into abbreviated utterances — expressions which articulate trauma consequent of the artist’s gender and feminine experience. This series, furthermore, elevates its materials, long-scorned ‘handicrafts’ that possess domestic associations and are, thus, demeaned alike their makers: women whose work, free of socially-acceptable cadence, states what may otherwise go unsaid.