Remnants: Andrea Garland
What was previously on view in the main gallery?
Remnants by Andrea Garland is currently on view in the main gallery August 21 - September 27, 2025. The exhibition features 40 embossed and drawn works on archival paper. The collection employs Southern heirlooms, textiles, artifacts, and motifs as media to explore themes of memory, grief, and personal heritage.
Remnants by Andrea Garland is currently on view in the main gallery August 21 - September 27, 2025. The exhibition features 40 embossed and drawn works on archival paper. The collection employs Southern heirlooms, textiles, artifacts, and motifs as media to explore themes of memory, grief, and personal heritage.
Artist Statement
A persistent mingling of reverence and grief haunts the landscape and the people of the American South. Decades of generational legacies compel us to carefully steward our regional, personal, and family stories and artifacts. Woven throughout our history are tales of fierce allegiance to place, respect for heritage and kin, and a sense of stoic dignity. To distill these ideas into images, I emboss inherited linens onto archival paper. These items were once cherished for their beauty or valued for their utility. They sojourn in closets, linger on shelves, and sit in chests of drawers, quietly reminding us of people whose lives demonstrated resourcefulness in the face of scarcity and the satisfaction that comes from making things by hand. In my process, the media clings to the raised textures of the embossing, producing soft, ghostly images. Reflecting the care I have witnessed the women of my family undertake with their linens, I wash each piece by hand. I flow water over the works, gently wring them out, and allow them to dry. Residue from the initial process remains on the paper's surface, and I selectively add and remove media to revive the silhouette of the embossing. Completing the homage to heritage, I present each work in a custom-built frame of reclaimed or salvaged wood, some over 100 years old, which carries its own story with it. Every component of each frame is sanded seven times, then hand-waxed to reveal the unique character of aged wood. The physicality of my process of pressing, washing, wringing, and reshaping these pieces serves as a metaphor for the tension our homeland experiences as we navigate inevitable change. Upholding our distinct traditions while recognizing all facets of our past will enable us to preserve and honor our Southern culture with respect and honesty.
Artist Biography
Andrea Garland is a Southern American artist who was raised on family land in the mountains of upstate South Carolina. She is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at North Greenville University. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Winthrop University and an Master of Fine Arts from Clemson University. Her influences include Rachel Whiteread, Do Ho Suh, and Dario Robleto. With a drive to research the history of the South and to illustrate its impact, Garland creates mixed-media works on paper. Her work features embossed impressions of inherited textiles that are manipulated through a ritual of pressing, rinsing, and reapplying media. Through her process, Garland seeks to reflect on the lingering presence of the past and its continued influence on contemporary life in the South. Garland has exhibited her work in galleries and publications across the United States, as well as in numerous academic and competitive exhibitions throughout the Southeast. A virtual international exhibit featuring a selection of her work will take place in early 2026 through the Women United Art Movement.
Art Reception
Friday, September 12 @ 5:00 - 7:00 pm
hors d'oeuvres and cash bar provided
Free & Open to the Public
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