Terrarium Exhibition panel discussion featuring Nicki Cherry, Allison Panzironi and Lilian Shtereva, about belonging, vulnerability, and the "tenacity" of nature.
This event will be held virtually on Zoom.
Nicki Cherry is an artist based in Queens, New York. They received their MFA from Yale School of Art in 2019 and their BA from The University of Chicago in 2014. Through pairing gestural fiberglass forms with found and fabricated objects, Cherry creates sculptures that blur distinctions between human, animal, plant, mineral, and other matter. Each sculpture acts as a conduit to navigate the enormous range of feelings our bodies bring about—failure, fragility, discomfort, emboldenment, awkwardness, and aspiration.
Allison Panzironi is an emerging artist whose work explores mental health, sexuality and their relationship to domesticity. She works with a variety of flexible materials like fabrics, foam, yarn and ceramic. She is drawn to the visual effects of fibers, which are so soft and gentle, being combined with a violent stitch. Similarly with ceramics, something that was once flexible transforms and becomes structured/rigid. It’s a concept that Allison identifies with and expresses in her work. Appearing externally soft and flexible but being held together by such harsh lines. A lot of the artist's practices started as coping mechanisms, finding comfort in the repeating lines and shapes which later evolved into their own bodies of work. She is curious about and inclined to analyze how to take care of people and what feels like home.
Lilian Shtereva, born and raised in Haskovo, Bulgaria is a New York City-based artist. Her work investigates the simultaneous impermanence and tenacity of the natural world, while referencing her personal history and interest in process-based painting. The artist's tools include bone and rabbit-skin glue, poppy seed oil, natural hand-made pigments, chalk, marble, botanical matter, organic dyes, and dry and oil pastel. The surface of the works vary between natural rice and mulberry paper, linen, duck cotton, muslin, chiffon and more. In 2019 Lilian received the Define American Immigrant Artist Fellowship, and the Soze Foundation Artist+Activist grant (2020).
