Maui Arts & Cultural Center presents solo exhibits by Chenta Laury, Holly Wong

The Maui Arts and Cultural Center is hosting two solo exhibitions in Schaefer International Gallery that activate spatial potential through fiber, sculpture and immersive installations.

Chenta Laury: Adaptive Frameworks and Holly Wong: Mending Body/Mending Mind will run concurrently through Oct. 28. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

“While the artists’ process of building from concept to realization has unfolded over the course of several years, their exhibitions happen to be timely, coming at a moment when our community is seeking ways to process the magnitude of recent disasters and looking for sources of light,” gallery director Jonathan Clark said. “It is our hope that the installations by each of these artists provide a safe space for reflection, emotional connection and renewal.”

Laury bridges a multitude of traditions through a formal vocabulary of line, shape, color and texture, rendered in a spectrum of natural fibers from animal and plant sources.

In Adaptive Frameworks, she integrates disparate fiber-based practices to pay homage to the intricate relationships of culture and craft – patchwork quilting of African-American communities of the Southern United States.

They nod to her own family heritage, felting from Scandinavian origins, and tapa-making with nuanced roots throughout Polynesia, layering these explorations with elements of geometric abstraction to voice her distinct perspective.

Her language takes inspiration from the plant and its way of being, looking at patterns of adaptation, migration and regeneration that serve as metaphors of the human experience and the intertwined connection of identity and place.

Originally from O‘ahu, Laury is a Maui-based artist and educator versed in fiber and mixed media. She received a bachelor’s degree in studio art and art history from Oberlin College, a Master’s in Education from Harvard University, and a Certificate in Applied Arts from the Fiber Crafts Studio in Chestnut Ridge, NY.

Wong’s installations of fiber and drawn materials straddle fragility and strength, harnessing memory, myth and trauma to find beauty in brokenness.

For her exhibition Mending Body/Mending Mind, she interweaves unconventional approaches with traditional sewing techniques, stitching together scars of the past as an act of resilience, as a reclamation of the female body, and in memory of her mother, a victim of domestic abuse.

Building her assemblages from varied transparencies of fabric and drafting film and transforming them with interventions of illumination and projection, she suggests the permeable veil between the living and the dead, the foggy sensation of processing grief, and the innate light of the spirit, ready to be rekindled.

Born in North Miami Beach, Fla., Wong lives and works in San Francisco. She pursued her education at the San Francisco Art Institute, receiving a masterʻs degree in fine arts with a concentration in new genres. She is a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, as well as a recipient of grants from the Puffin Foundation, the George Sugarman Foundation and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

The two exhibitions have been in development for several years, with former gallery director Neida Bangerter coming up with the initial vision for pairing the artists and their complementary bodies of work.

Related Public Events:

Workshop: From Fleece to Felt

• Oct. 7 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
• Laury will introduce 2D and 3D techniques in this wet felting workshop, where participants will experience the magical and chaotic process of transforming light, fluffy wool into solid fabric forms. Bring a lunch.
• Fee: $75 per person, includes materials.
• Limited space for workshops. For details and registration, contact: peter@mauiarts.org

Observe and Play Family Day Free

• Oct. 21 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
• This popular event welcomes families to visit the gallery, witness demonstrations of fiber art processes, and respond to their experience by making art pieces of their own to take home.