April 3rd - April 10th, 2024
Dwelling In Between
Shelby Lorraine Lindsley
Bolsky Gallery
Otis College of Art and Design
9045 Lincoln Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Opening Reception:
April 4th, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Otis College of Art and Design is proud to present Dwelling In Between, a thesis exhibition by MFA Fine Arts candidate Shelby Lorraine Lindsley.
Dwelling In Between proposes questions around “what makes a home a ‘home’?” Is it the memories we make? The connection to specific spaces? The relationships between our family? How do we identify ourselves in a home? Lindsley considers new ways to discuss how the home is a metaphor for the body.
To align with their autobiographical experiences, Dwelling In Between transforms the gallery space into a scene of domesticity rooted in stability. For the artist, a home is built on maternal energy and memories: being consoled when scraping your knee, smelling freshly baked cookies when walking in, and being cuddled in handmade blankets. Despite this, Lindsley had a lack of paternal energy: the idea of looking up to someone and having someone who can shield you from anything and everything. To represent this, the exhibition is segregated into gendered areas through feminist materials and methods to critique the paternal. As you journey throughout the space, crocheted and mixed media sculpture will blend with found and inherited objects to blur the lines between reality, memory, and fantasy.
Additionally, viewers will immerse themselves in the installation through the smells of musky bergamot and diesel in conjunction with wind chimes rustling and coyotes howling. Viewers are encouraged to interact with the space as if it were their home.
Dwelling In Between acts as a culmination of the artist’s healing journey and the deepening of critiquing notions of the nuclear family structure. The exhibition is an entrance into evaluating heteronormative values through addressing the need for a masculine protector by venerating the maternal as a nurturing and protective force. By seeking to bring hospitality into institutional spaces, the artist is also challenging the pretense of institutional safety. Finally, the thesis show is a love letter to those who come from a broken home, acknowledging that although we cannot change the past, we can create a space for healing and moving forward to build the “perfect” home for ourselves.
Shelby Lorraine Lindsley (they/she, b. 2000, Murrieta, CA) is a queer, Mexican-American artist currently living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Their art explores the idea of the body through land/space, relationships/community, memory/experience, and visible/invisible identities using interdisciplinary strategies and intimate materials, such as crochet and metal. Her aim is to blur the lines between craft and fine art through the intimacy of labor. They received their BA in Studio Art from the University of La Verne in 2022. She is currently an MFA candidate at Otis College of Art and Design, 2024.
www.shelbylorrainelindsley.com | shelbylorrainelindsley@gmail.com | @shelbylindsley.art
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April 10, 2024