Alejandra Almuelle:
“De Tierra” 2023

  • Alejandra Almuelle’s exhibition, “De Tierra”,  asks the viewer to look at her work in conversation with Elisabet Ney's classically-inspired sculptures. Both female artists are inspired by the intricacies of the figure but separated by the time span of over a hundred years and geographical backgrounds. Originally from Peru, Almuelle's ceramic figurative sculptures exemplify the biological archive of experience through the human form. Working in clay is an important component to Almuelle’s work and speaks to the medium's historical significance and utilitarian properties as well as its connection to the earth. While Ney was a classically trained artist, her use of clay is strictly a means to an end, ultimately creating works in Italian marble. Throughout the museum, both artist’s artworks are re-contextualized as it is presented on and among the original furnishings.

  • Alejandra Almuelle was born in Arequipa, Peru. She spent few years in Pizac in the Sacred Valley of Cuzco, a center for ceramic making. Peru is a country in which the abundance of clay has made this medium a language of artistic expression. Clay is its own idiom, and being there, she began to speak it. After she moved to Austin, she started working with clay. Addressing the functionality of the medium as well as its sculptural expression has been equally important for her. She has participated in art fairs, galleries and museums with both pottery and sculpture.

Deborah Mersky:
“The Path I Took” 2023

  • Through painted and stitched works, Mersky retraces memories of a childhood in Austin spent wandering along creeks and railroad tracks. She combines these abstracted sensory memories with versions of her current daily walking routes, leading to visual/tactile translations of an untamed world close at hand. Mersky describes these paper and textile artifacts as direct evidence of her days, past and present.

  • "I have made my way in the world as a studio artist and a designer in the field of public art.

    In the studio, in addition to drawing, painting, and making objects, I use a clay printing technique that I have developed and refined. I carve the surface of a clay slab, then print with oil-based inks.

    My work has been shown nationally in galleries and is in diverse collections such as MICROSOFT and the Fundacion Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. I have created public artworks for libraries, hospitals, parks, light rail, and public utility facilities in Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota and Texas. The overlapping worlds of nature and human habitation on earth is what interests me, particularly the delicate, off kilter moment we currently reside in."

Annie May Johnston:
“the Mother the Witch the Hysteric” 2023

  • In collaboration with Elisabet Ney’s striking sculpture of Lady Macbeth, Johnston’s unique printmaking practice employs new technologies alongside traditional processes. Considering gendered traits, the supernatural and pseudo-science, her new artwork combines images and interpretations of Lady Macbeth, Elisabet Ney, and herself. This exhibition is in partnership with PrintAustin, an artist-led nonprofit organization working to showcase traditional and contemporary approaches in printmaking.

  • Annie May Johnston is an artist and mother situated in the field of printmaking, often working towards the margins of the medium - employing new technologies alongside traditional processes. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Austin where she is the Print Area head, chairs the Guest Artist in Print Program and is the faculty sponsor for the UT Riso Room. She received her MFA in Print from the University of Texas at Austin and holds undergraduate degrees in Classics and Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was an assistant printmaker at Michael Woolworth Publications in Paris, specializing in traditional lithographic printmaking. Johnston has shown internationally and nationally including shows in Basel, New York, Houston, and London with a recent solo show, Sympathetic Magic, at Ivester Contemporary in Austin, TX.

Renee Lai & Rosa Nussbaum:
“The Bathing of the Sphinx” 2022

  • "The Bathing of the Sphinx" consists of a video installation in the main gallery and a sculptural element and reflection pond on the museum's grounds. Through this exhibit, the artists connect their own experiences involving art, land and femininity to Elizabet Ney’s personal history. The exhibit will open as part of the Austin Studio Tour 2022.

  • About Lai:
    Renee Lai makes drawings, paintings, and sometimes videos. She is based in Austin, TX. Lai's work explores the idea of barriers and how they serve as a metaphor for many other things-- private property, ownership, belonging, security, fear. Painted in a thin, translucent way, Lai’s barriers are minimally and elegantly constructed, letting the surface and a few marks carry much of the painting’s energy.    

    About Nussbaum:
    "I make research driven work across digital and interactive media, fibers and and performance sculpture. My work explores gender friendship and family in the context of personal and political histories."

Cindy Elizabeth:
“EVE” 2022

  • Eve is an homage to all the women, girls, and femmes who, like Elisabet Ney, have shaped and are still shaping the landscape of Central Texas. Mostly captured over the course of the pandemic, this collection of images showcases portraits of Black women and girls, who are central to the culture of Austin and yet are often erased and dissociated from the culture they have created. Eve is a celebration of the presence, work, and beauty of Black women in Austin; to disrupt white supremacist culture as much as to credit Black women for their contributions to the arts and fashion.

  • Cindy Elizabeth is a freelance portrait and documentary photographer based in Atlanta, GA.

    Elizabeth’s work has been exhibited in Los Angeles at SEASONS LA Gallery, and in Austin at The Elisabet Ney Museum, The Art Galleries at Austin Community College, Martha’s Contemporary Gallery, The George Washington Carver Museum, ICOSA Gallery, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Rehab El Sadek:
“SECRET PLACE” 2022

  •  “Secret Place” is a site-specific installation created to be a meditation on the internal solitude inherent to the immigrant experience. El Sadek utilized sculpture, photography, and everyday objects to create this body of work. The fragility of individual and collective memories is demonstrated through installation materials in various states of aging and deterioration. El Sadek’s heritage is also reflected in some of the materials, especially those used in Egypt for healing, protection, and conservation.

  • Rehab El Sadek is an Egyptian artist of Sudanese ancestry whose career has spanned 25 years, 17 countries and 4 continents. She is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of conceptual art, architecture, and language. In her work, she uses light, shadow, history, and memory to conceptualize meditative journeys through personal past and the ancient world. The largest influence on her work is the rich history of her native country and ancient civilizations. She often borrow colors, textures, and materials from antiquity. In a modest way, she likes to think she is contributing to a vernacular that's been around for thousands of years.

Liv Monique Johnson:
“SUSPENSION” 2022

  • “Suspension" is a unique 3D immersive print installation which invites the viewer to explore an outcropping of unexpected wilderness where the weird may take place. Screen-printed elements and a variety of materials combine to create a lush room-full of colorful foliage, culminating in a suspended moment; a focal point of ultimate potential. Surrounded by abundance, this core allows for a quiet confrontation with the unknown.

  • Born and raised in Pahoa, Hawaii, Liv Monique Johnson earned her BA in Art at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where her position as Printmaking Studio Assistant allowed her the opportunity to help visiting artists develop and edition their prints for the UH Hilo Visiting Artist Print Collection. At Texas Tech University she earned her MFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in printmaking and sculpture. Her printmaking practice incorporates traditional methods including etching, screen printing, relief and lithography while also exploring new developments in these areas. Her installations are primarily built around print-based media and often include light and sound installation. As a botanical illustrator she has published the first scientific illustrations of four newly discovered species of Cyrtandra in the peer-reviewed journal Phytokeys.

    She now lives in Houston where she continues to develop her studio work and is an Instructor and Print Studio Manager for the Glassell Studio School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Marie Ely:
“Ongoings” 2021

  • Infused with West Texas air, "Ongoings" is an enigmatic collection of photo, collage, paintings and prints by Marie Ely.

  • Ely's photos and nostalgia meet naturally on paper to create romantic, abstract collage assemblies that speak of dust and rainbows, Stetsons and diamonds and abandoned storefronts. Born and raised in Texas, Ely currently spends her time between the Hill Country and the sprawl of Los Angeles.

Jade Walker:
“Reweave” 2021

  • Reweaving is to repair damage to a garment in a virtually invisible way by hand weaving new material and replicating the garments original structure. Both Mire + Mend and Birdsong utilize similar weaving structures but one asks others to bring their own materials and take part in a communal fashion to mend while the other advocates observation and action through other means. Together these works create the overall project, Reweave: 2021. 

  • Jade Walker is a sculptor and an active member of the arts community living in Austin, Texas. She received her BFA from The University of Florida and her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin. Walker's soft sculptures consist of her personal struggle with spectatorship, binaries within gender and race, abstraction, narrative, found objects, desire, and the body as temporal. Her work has been included in solo exhibitions at the Elisabet Ney Museum (Austin, TX), the Austin Museum of Art (now The Contemporary Austin), Blue Star Contemporary Arts (San Antonio, TX), Dimension Gallery (Austin, TX), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, TX), The Museum of Pocket Art (Austin, TX and traveling).