“i’m sorry for your loss… Meditations on Discomfort and Change” will be on exhibit at the Brick City Gallery August 30-October 6 and will be open during First Friday Art Walk September 1, 6-9 p.m. and October 6, 6-9 p.m.

Co-curated by Alexandra Chamberlain and Jodi McCoy, the exhibition explores the ways “we as humans visualize and internalize our experiences with change associated with loss,” according to McCoy.

Selections from Kim Brandt, Rick Briggenhorst, Michelle Burdine, Charles Clary and Axelle Kieffe gave Chamberlain and McCoy the opportunity to examine “how contemporary artists use visual culture to navigate their personal journeys through loss and grief and connect through community,” McCoy said. Chamberlain and McCoy also included their own personal “common thread of grief” throughout the exhibition.

Chamberlain and McCoy were inspired to develop the exhibition after discovering they had both faced grief and loss with the deaths of their fathers.

“We began to talk more deeply about the complexities of what it feels like to move through the process of loss (before and after), how those experiences are intertwined with visual art, and how art impacts that lifelong journey,” McCoy said.

Struggling to define “loss”

The strikeout of the artistic phrase “i’m sorry for your loss” is intentional and was agreed upon by the curators and the artists, McCoy explained. “Throughout our personal conversations and those with the artists in the exhibit we all expressed an unsettling struggle with the word loss. Specifically, the implication that what was lost could be found again. Our intent to strike through the common phrasing ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ is to visually indicate that there is more depth to grief, loss and change than one well-meaning hollow phrase.”

In their curator statement, Chamberlain and McCoy ask viewers to “explore parts of their lives that have experienced change and acknowledge the process and feelings that come to the surface that make for a beautiful human existence.”

By doing so, McCoy hopes viewers will “re-consider how they perceive grief, loss, and change and how it moves through their lives.”

“Grief, specifically, is praise; it is the unexpressed love for the person or thing that was lost,” McCoy added.

McCoy is Director of Exhibitions at Missouri State University. Chamberlain is the Director of Operations for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG).

Brick City Gallery is located within Brick City at 215 West Mill Street, Springfield, Missouri. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 11-6 p.m.

Brick City Gallery is a proud member of Springfield’s First Friday Art Walk and will be open 6-9 p.m. the first Friday of every month between August-December and February-May.

Contact the Department of Art and Design or call 417-837-3220 for more information.