Exhibition Opening: legacy as lexicon: a stand-in for my voice
Goldfinch is proud to present legacy as lexicon, a stand-in for my voice, a group exhibition in Gallery I featuring works by Hale Ekinci, Azadeh Gholizadeh, Roni Packer, Marina Peng, and Yasmin Spiro. Emphasizing texture as a trigger for haptic memory, or “touch memory,” each artist combines historical crafting practices with contemporary techniques, revealing their individual and ancestral narratives as continuous threads in an interwoven tapestry.
“Together, these five artists use craft to share personal memories shaped by intergenerational experiences and the world around them,” says Lauren Leving, the exhibition’s curator. “Using tangible materials to “speak,” they draw on traditional methods of passing down culture while experimenting with new modes of memory dissemination.”
Hale Ekinci combines Middle Eastern and Western art-making traditions in her embroidered paintings. An avid crocheter, she pairs ornamentation found on Turkish oya (lace) and kilim rugs with familial archival imagery. Using techniques like slow stitching and collage to incorporate personal narratives and historical references into her work, Ekinci challenges perceptions of what is often considered women's labor. Embedding cultural symbols and personal relics into textiles like “New New House,” the artist explores complex narratives of belonging and connection, as well as the immigrant experience.
Azadeh Gholizadeh’s felt and embroidered tapestries explore the body, landscape, memory, and the singularity of perception. Teetering on the edge of abstraction, her scenic compositions use pixilation to depict views of different landscapes she encounters. These works function equally as windows into her emotional journey and ongoing exploration of belonging. By fusing traditional embroidery techniques with contemporary artistic practices (collage, sculpture, digital rendering), Gholizadeh’s viewpoints become portals that transcend time and place, connecting her memories of Tehran with her present experiences in the United States.
Roni Packer’s works also highlight the artist’s use of materials as a grounding for self-reflection. For Packer, painting is an intimate process; her No Paint series demonstrates this intimacy through the subtle relationships tethering her body to her material choices. The pale beige of her canvases becomes the wide expanse of her homeland desert, for example, while the fringe that crowns Untitled (Split) recalls the artist’s own, blunt-cut bangs. Displayed together, Packer’s body of work is both a self-portrait and a snapshot of the artist’s daily life – comprising “a body” in more ways than one.
While the works of Gholizadeh and Packer use abstraction to create glimpses into their worlds, Marina Peng’s weavings depict fully-formed imagery. Using frenetic, spiraling gestures and the impulsive snip of scissors, Peng’s textiles capture bodies in motion, effortlessly communicating the behavior patterns that shape familial dynamics. At once personal and universal, Peng’s textural narratives extend outwards, bringing us into her story and reminding us of our own.
Yasmin Spiro uses jute, driftwood, and rope to evoke the muted tones and textures of Caribbean architecture. These organic and fiber-based materials, which for Spiro are symbolically connected to the landscape and culture of Jamaica, are employed by the artist as a means of examining her unique personal and cultural identity. In textiles like “Grain of Sand,” Spiro invites viewers to engage with the memories and histories her work evokes, in hopes of encouraging dialogue about landscape, heritage, and the tactile experience of touch memory.
legacy as lexicon: a stand-in for my voice runs from January 25 through March 8, 2025. The exhibition’s opening reception will take place on January 25 from 2 - 5pm and is free and open to the public.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2845802-0
Instagram: https://go.evvnt.com/2845802-2
