DO NOT SILENCE ME: Exploring Women's Roles Through Stitch

Women’s History Month brings us an exciting first solo exhibition by Kansas City-based female textile artist Linda Jurkiewicz. Jurkiewicz’s work is narrative, thoughtful, and equal parts charming and unsettling. She uses her art to as a form of catharsis for herself but also to share the stories of what the women in her family have endured.

In the Artist’s words:
“I am exploring the cultural mores placed on women: imposed care taking, silence, lesser status in relationships and work, religious doctrine, perceptions of weakness, as well as self-imposed restrictions and lack of self-determination.

I upcycle repurposed materials, especially from “women’s work” such as dish towels, sheets, household items and clothing. My fiber work incorporates soft sculpture, word play, idiom, embroidery, wall hangings, plush form, sequential dioramas, and installations. These delve into the cultural roles of women in America over the last century; roles that are changing, and roles that push viewers to reexamine, to trade nostalgia for empowerment.

Textile art is easily accessible to the viewer. It is familiar, a silent language of hearth and home. It can speak to the viewer intimately and quickly reveal bias, create subconscious connections, and show the seams, where we have worn out ideas that need to be pieced together in new ways.

Textile work is about memory.”