Cristin Tierney Gallery and Abattoir Gallery are pleased to participate in Independent 20th Century with a special joint presentation of rarely seen paintings and drawings from the estate of Audra Skuodas (1940-2019). Independent 20th Century opens with an invite-only preview day on Thursday, September 5th, and continues through Sunday, September 8th.
Audra Skuodas epitomizes the "under-recognized artist." Virtually unknown to a larger audience throughout her life, the oeuvre found greater attention only after her death when it was prominently featured in the 2022 Cleveland Triennial: Front. Over the past several years, museums such as the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, and the Cleveland Museum of Art have begun acquiring and exhibiting her work. A major museum is planning a retrospective exhibition with a publication.
Skuodas was a soul-searcher who studied science, mysticism, and Eastern religions and sought universality in her art. From the 1980s to 2010, her work transformed from figuration to abstraction while maintaining an interest in the formless nature of the cosmos. She imbued geometric forms with emotional intelligence and the feminine. This presentation includes figurative and abstract paintings and works on paper outlining this process with exceptional examples from the artist’s estate, including some unique stitched drawings from the Womb Wound series.
Skuodas' work demonstrates that alternative narratives are not only plausible but essential to a non-canonical approach to the study, appreciation, and historicization of the arts.
“[My] drawings, paintings, and books have explored, what I call, vibrational vulnerability: the invisible phenomena of incremental cause and effect. The works arise from meditative contemplation of seemingly disparate phenomena that we have compartmentalized and yet function as tandem, parallel realizations of that ever-changing continuum we call Life: a cosmic dance of consequence.”
- Audra Skuodas, 2017
On Friday, October 25th, Cristin Tierney Gallery will open Vibrational Vulnerability, Audra Skuodas’ first solo exhibition with the gallery and the first presentation of her work in New York in over fifteen years. Vibrational Vulnerability will be on view through December 14th, 2024.
Audra Skuodas (1940-2019) was born in Lithuania and lived for six years in a displaced persons camp in Germany before coming to the U.S. in 1949. She became a US citizen in 1961 and earned a B.A. and M.A. at Northern Illinois University. She taught and exhibited her work throughout her career, and was associated with institutions such as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Oberlin College. She exhibited in Chicago with Richard Gray, and in New York with Moti Hassan, as well as at regional spaces in the Cleveland area. In 2010, she received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award.
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).
Abattoir Gallery is a contemporary art space in the resurgent Clark-Fulton neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Launched in 2020 by Lisa Kurzner, they present a program of local, regional, and national artists designed to elicit thought-provoking conversation and discussion.