What Stands Before Us: Art in Quarantine

What Stands Before Us: Art in Quarantine
Childs Gallery, Boston, MA
June 10-September 3, 2021

What Stands Before Us: Art in Quarantine is a group exhibition of art created during the Covid-19 pandemic. The exhibition encompasses the wide range of subjects that artists have personally grappled with during quarantine, including social isolation, the global health crisis, racial injustice, and climate change.

The exhibition takes its title from a line of Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hills We Climb.” Gorman implores us to “lift our gazes, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us,” to confront together the many threats to our future.

The exhibition will feature artwork from David Avery, Resa Blatman, Thomas Darsney, Paul Endres Jr, William Evertson, Andrew Fish, Sean Flood, Robert Freeman, Jillian Freyer, Joan Hall, Jorge R. Pomba, Karen Lee Sobol, John Thompson, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Anthony Peyton Young, and Sara Zielinski.

What Stands Before Us in Quarantine

“The sea has informed a lifetime of creative exploration and a passion for marine advocacy. The works in [What Stands Before Us: Art in Quarantine], I Will Follow You and Touches Me Touches You, are in response to the pandemic and how it caused the face of litter to change. Not only was I collecting plastic detritus but a new trash for the next generation: used masks and gloves. As the pandemic stretched from weeks to months, I saw more and more masks and gloves. Although not better or worse than plastic, it is just another kind of litter causing huge risks to marine ecosystems and to our future.

The works are created by making plates from plastic, mask, and glove detritus that I collected on the beaches near where I live during the pandemic. They are then inked and printed on handmade paper. After being laminated to Mylar the works are hand cut and layered to form complex constructions that use beauty to deliver a troubling message.” – Joan Hall