Holding Space: The Art of Care
A Group Exhibit featuring Artists Who Are Also Caregivers
Truist Gallery| September 18th - November 27th
Opening Reception: Friday, September 25th 6-8pm
Durham Art Guild Gallery
120 Morris Street, Durham NC, 27701
Holding Space: the Art of Care is an exhibition that centers the creative practices of artists who are also caregivers — parents, children of aging parents, healthcare workers, teachers, and many others whose daily lives are devoted to caring for others. The 150+ works explore how care work and creative work intertwine, focusing on the tenderness, exhaustion, devotion, and resilience that shape both art-making and caregiving.
The exhibition represents a variety of media: painting, sculpture, textile, photography, installation and ceramic by artists whose practices are deeply informed by their roles as caregivers. Together, these works map a terrain of empathy and endurance, revealing how art becomes both a record of and refuge from the emotional labor of caregiving. For many artists, the act of caring for others transforms not only the rhythms of their days but also the materials, gestures, and meaning of their work.
Holding Space: the Art of Care aims to honor the often unseen labor that sustains families, communities, and the creative world itself. By foregrounding the voices of artists who live within cycles of giving and renewal, this exhibition reframes care as a profound creative force.
Curated by Ash Lorusso and Paget Marion Blythe
Presented by the Durham Art Guild
THE Artists
Alison Charchar: find on IG & website
Allison Tierney: find on IG & website
Amy Elmore: find on IG
Ana Carolina Hurant: find on IG
Andrea Farrow
Angela Hugghins
Anna Dew: find on IG & website
Anna Ferrin: find on IG & website
Ash Lorusso: find on IG
Barbara Campbell Thomas: find on IG & website
Brooke Davis: find on IG & website
Caitlyn Case-Cohen
Cassandra J. Rowe: find on IG & website
Charla Rios
Cotton Bryan
Courtney Potter
Delaney Susi: visit the website
Dolly R. Sickles: find on IG & website
Emily Anderson: find on IG & website
Emily Doliner: find on IG & website
Erica Kendrick: find on IG & website
Ginsy Barnes: find on IG & website
Heidi Day Wenzel: find on IG
Jacob Morris
Jaime Slaughter-Acey: find on IG & website
Jason Lord: find on IG
Jennie Traill Schaeffer: find on IG & website
Jessie Brown
Jill Hebert Steffey
Jordan Grace Owens: find on IG & website
Karin Schneider: find on IG & website
Kendall Griffith
Kevin Georgas: find on IG
Kia Love
Kim Herold
Kristin Lozoya: find on IG & website
Leopardstripe: find on IG & website
Levi Haske
Li-Lan Hsiang Weiss: find on IG & website
Isabel Lu: find on IG & website
Alexis McKenney: find on IG & website
Libby Fosso
Linda Cato: find on IG
Megan Bowser: visit the website
Megan Thomas Cronin: find on IG
Melissa Bauer Wilgis: find on IG & website
Melissa Jo Gordon: find on IG & website
Micaela Rish Ray: find on IG & website
Michelle Heavener
Moriah LeFebvre: find on IG & website
Norton Pease: find on IG & website
Paget Marion Blythe: find on IG & website
Renée Flam: find on IG & website
Shayna Johansen: find on IG & website
Slater Mapp: visit the website
Stephen Lewis Young
Toni Hartley: find on IG & website
Tracey Chipps: find on IG
Trish Klenow: find on IG
Yana Slutskaya: find on IG
MEET
THE
Curators
is a visual artist from Raleigh, NC who currently lives in Chapel Hill. She left the state for about a decade to complete her MFA in painting at Parsons School of Design in New York. Ash returned to the area in 2015 to raise her three children, and to care for her mother during her battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. Ash’s work is heavily influenced by this period of transition and intense care-giving; exploring ideas of personal identity, memory, grief, and the unseen pathways of daily life.
Ash Lorusso
Paget Marion Blythe
is a self-taught artist who works in acrylic, mixed media and collage. Her recent focus is on how the mindful practice of art can be therapeutic and transformative for individuals and communities experiencing life transitions and during times of intense societal change. She is particularly interested in how iconography of women and the feminine can be employed to question traditional and prescriptive narratives. Paget lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina with her two young children who inspire and challenge her creative expression on the daily.
Exhibition Location
120 Morris Street, Durham, NC 27701