WAITING, WORKS BY BRIT BORCHER & MADISON SVENDGARD, AT 211 SOUTH
AUGUST 12 - NOVEMBER 4, 2022
211 South is pleased to present a new two-person exhibition, Waiting, which features a selection of paintings by Brit Borcher and Madison Svendgard. Borcher and Svendgard are the winners of 211 South’s second annual University of Arkansas MFA Call for Art launched last spring. Curated by Kellie Lehr, the exhibition will be free and open to the public from August 12th until November 4th, 2022.
In Faith Wilding’s iconic feminist monologue, “Waiting,” women, WAIT. Wilding’s performance condenses the entirety of a woman’s life into a 15-minute, monotonous, repetitive cycle of waiting, “waiting for life to begin...waiting to be myself...waiting for him to tell me something interesting, to ask me how I feel...waiting for things to get better.”
Routines of waiting, waiting for transportation, affirming text responses and breaks at work are ever present. The word “waiting” has become synonymous with prolonged stress. Many wait for feelings of isolation to end and for opportunities to reconnect. Even more, wait for decisions that will affect their livelihood. Though these two artists approach image-making differently, one representationally, one abstractly, as women, Madison Svendgard and Brit Borcher share in the act of waiting.
Waiting for release...Madison Svendgard considers how narrative has the potential to create dualities within spaces. Relieving the viewer and herself of bodily restrictions, Svendgard creates alternate realities to drop into, creating opportunities to experience where fiction and reality slide in and out of one another - a daydream of what lies beyond.
Waiting for things to get better...Brit Borcher uses the autonomous space of her paintings to explore what is difficult to locate, both emotionally and intellectually. With generous intention, Borcher compresses layers of painted imagery and linear drawings to create portals for the viewer to cross into and consider what lies beyond accumulated stress and anxiety.
Together, with the curatorial assistance of Kellie Lehr, Madison Svendgard and Brit Borcher have come to appreciate Wilding’s words and see them as a way for their work to coexist. “Waiting,” alongside Faith Wilding’s “Waiting,” may now stand as an act of resistance, reflection and refusal.