Round 13, Hold. Elmina, Ghana (2012) Austin, Texas (2020) by Kara Springer
March 6 – April 2
Kara Springer holds degrees from the University of Toronto, ENSCI les Ateliers in Paris, and the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of the Bahamas, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts. She is an alum of the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art and participated in a fellowship with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston Core Program.
Kara Springer’s interdisciplinary practice is particularly concerned with armature—the underlying structure that holds the flesh of a body in place. She utilizes photography, sculpture, and site-specific interventions to explore precarity and brokenness in systems of structural support through engagement with architecture, urban infrastructure, and systems of institutional and political power. Springer has lived, worked, and studied in Toronto, Paris, Philadelphia, and New York, where she recently completed the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Springer was also a fellow at the Core Program in Houston, Texas.
Listen to Kara Springer in conversation with Cage Match Curator Aryel Rene Jackson below. Explore our other podcast episodes here
Round 14, (in)box by Taylor Barnes
September 18 – October 23
Taylor Barnes was born in 1993 in Austin, Texas. In 2019, she received an MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas, where she earned two BFAs in 2015 for both Ceramics and Fibers and served as a Teaching Assistant and Fellow. She has exhibited solo shows at Erin Cluley Gallery, UNT on the Square, Denton Black Film Festival, 500X Gallery, and at Big Medium in Austin, TX, running concurrently with her outdoor installation for Round 14 of the Cage Match Project outside The Museum of Human Achievement.
Round 14: (in)box, transforms the cage into an escape shelter. Wood, fallen limbs, nails, and fiber form a cage within a cage. Inspired by her research on barracoons, a type of barracks used historically for the temporary captivity of enslaved people or criminals, barnes aims to re-conceptualize the notion of confinement. Her construction of three crate-like forms acknowledge the veiled histories of “people as cargo” recontextualizing the structures as safe havens of escape. This timely installment evokes notions of the unknown, limitations and the privilege of a certain future.
Taylor Barnes is an interdisciplinary fibers artist creating work that expresses personal experiences dealing with race, identity, and social critique. With a research-based approach on history and its permanent effects on the present, her work explores the internal and external complexities of being a Black woman in America today.
Taylor Barnes lives and works in Austin, Texas, and recently received her MFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas. She has exhibited solo exhibitions at Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas, TX; 500X Gallery, Dallas, TX, and has an upcoming solo exhibition at Big Medium , Austin, TX. Her numerous group exhibitions include Untitled Art Fair in Miami, FL and Dallas Art Fair, Dallas TX. Barnes was honored with the Sylvia Houlgand Emerging Artist Award for Make Art with Purpose 2020. Along with her exhibition with Cage Match project installation, she will have a solo show at Big Medium in Austin TX entitled “Pressure” which will run from September 12 – October 10 2020.
Round 15, Overgrown by Rachel Means
November 13 – February 5
Rachel Means is passionate about creating art as well as engaging artists and students. She currently lives and works in Austin, TX. She received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2018. She has exhibited work in numerous places including Washington, DC; Davidson, NC; Tampa, FL; Austin, TX; Philadelphia, PA; and New York City, NY. In 2019, she was invited to be a Visiting Artist at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX and, in the beginning of 2020, she participated in the Carrizozo Artist-in-Residence program in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Later that year, she released a virtual art exhibition experience – Stillness, What Lies Beneath. In 2024, she will participate in The Brehm Residency.
Round 15: Overgrown attempts to confront and get beyond the cage. Rachel approaches the cage with natural and wire-formed plant life to have the appearance of “overgrowing” the cage while entanglement and connection also occur. Rachel shares, “there are too many ways that the experience of being and/or feeling bound can overwhelm us. The cage can represent those experiences. By creating in response and from within this literal cage, I wonder, from a more emotional/psychological perspective, can I get beyond the cage? How will the cage transform? Will the cage disappear? Can I let go of the cage?”
While she creates from her own perspective, she invites us to reflect on our own cages or the cages we experience in the world and question their presence in our lives. She also reminds us of the understanding, process, connection, beauty, and hope within and beyond the cages we experience.
Through drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation, Rachel Means reconsiders and reflects on the intersections between the relational and internal. She brings attention to the seen and unseen of Christian faith as well as captures the beauty and decay of nature. Her artistic process gives space to nuance and subtle gestures through tactility, abstraction, and material experimentation.
She received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She has exhibited work in numerous places including Davidson College, Davidson, NC; Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, FL; Glazer Children’s Museum, Tampa, FL; InLiquid Crane Arts Hall Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; and 1969 Gallery, New York City, NY. In 2019, she was invited to be a Visiting Artist at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX and, in the beginning of 2020, she participated in the Carrizozo Artist-in-Residence program in Carrizozo, New Mexico. She recently released a virtual experience of her solo pop-up art exhibition titled Stillness, What Lies Beneath in Austin, TX.