| Gallery I |
| Heidi Kumao Fabrications: Stitched and Animated |
| September 30 – October 25, 2025 The artist will be present: Thu, Oct 2, 6-8 pm Sat, Oct 4, 3-5 pm Sat, Oct 25, 3-5 pm |
Thread, stitching on industrial felt, mounted to wood
| Ceres Gallery is pleased to present Heidi Kumao’s solo exhibition, Fabrications: Stitched and Animated. Kumao combines thread drawings and fabric cutouts on industrial felt to create minimalist images of conversations and relationships. Similar in form to a New Yorker cartoon, each piece distills the emotional and psychological tenor of an interaction down to a single key moment. These textile and animated works are episodic, a collection of potent moments fabricated from memory, and stitched together as necessary parts of a greater whole. Reimagined using sewing, fabric cutouts, thread and wool, these tactile depictions are intentionally imperfect, missing details much like any recollection. In the current political climate truth is often sidelined or distorted, and facts dismissed as fabrications. These works resist this erasure by highlighting personal storytelling as a necessary and powerful tool of preservation. By freezing moments of vulnerability and precariousness, the textile works focus on the unspoken power dynamics of workplace and domestic relationships. The stop motion animations, “35 Days” and “LADIES.” are also composed from a series of discrete moments and use humor and absurdity to recount lived experiences from the pandemic and mid-20th century office culture. In “35 Days,” neighborhood callers provide clues (some helpful and some not) in the search for a lost cat, ultimately weaving together and revealing a community of care during the most isolating period in modern history. “LADIES.” uses physical slapstick to imagine and disarm the stereotypical roles and invisible gender politics that exist in traditional workplaces. The artist’s website: www.heidikumao.net |
Gallery II
| Elizabeth Myers Castonguay Unraveling (Tapestry of Nature) September 30 – October 25, 2025 Reception: Thu, Oct 2, 6-8 pm |
| Elizabeth Myers Castonguay has spent a lifetime observing, researching, and making artwork about her passions: human diversity and the preservation of nature. Over the past fifteen years, the number of endangered species has risen from 40,000 to over one million. The artist’s paintings often depict humanity monochromatically with the endangered species in full color. Every species is critically important to the fine balance of nature though many cultures have an anthropocentric philosophy. Castonguay’s paintings are often divided into sections because all living beings are complex and sentient as scientists continue to discover. Colorful grids represent images of DNA common to all life forms. In the artwork, an endangered Mother Nature and Mother Earth are frequently used as a metaphor for women who find themselves in dangerous situations. Also, millions of women globally are unable to pursue an education. The artist asks how many diseases could have been cured and great art created if women had been permitted to follow their talents throughout the generations in science, medicine and art. How many great philosophers or world leaders were not permitted to develop? Today we are witnessing millions of women around the world losing their autonomy and many books by women authors have been banned. Castonguay has tried for a lifetime to break down barriers between groups of people while also shining a light on what is happening in the natural world. Her paintings are in dozens of collections of people both conservative and liberal from coast to coast. Art can help people to see through another’s eyes. I hope the viewer will internalize, reflect, and see the world that we have created. Within the work there is a sense of urgency, but also an element of hope because we can all engage in the stewardship of Mother Nature while also respecting others of our own species. – Elizabeth Myers Castonguay Artist’s website: EMC Studio |
| UPCOMING October 28 – November 22, 2025 Christine Mottau The New England Drawings, 2001-2008 Nancy Kahlow-Curtis The Scarlet Studies |