Our Lady

By Sarah Rieser

My practice is a thematic exploration of consumption-related dysthymia, currently focused on the (mis)placement of adoration. I create mixed media soft sculpture ornamented with repurposed novelty refuse that engage the fetishization of religious imagery while introducing questions of taste, feminine labor, and prescriptive reliance on the nondurable. My pieces convey elements of humor and irony by using traditional, labor-intensive processes to reinterpret disposable, mass-produced materials with the notion of re-assigning value to nugatory consumer goods. These elements are culled from the stored contents of my parents; basement and reconceived with the addition of collected paraphernalia and items purchased from the ubiquitous craft stores, dollar outlets, and thrift shops of suburbia. Building upon a foundation of craft taken from my upbringing, interior design background, and fine art training, I am investigating the duality of my relationship to the conventionally accepted hierarchy of art and craft which positions womens' work as the lowbrow province of hobby, and I intend my work to reframe a contemporary idea of the inferior homemade as the elevated handmade.

Our Lady is a mixed media soft sculpture that I had originally created for an HIV/AIDS charity auction in October of 2019, which (after four months without receiving any bids) was returned to me just two weeks before the March 2020 lockdown. Over the next twelve months of quarantine, I worked and reworked this piece in the face of new and ever expanding COVID challenges – sometimes in comfort, some in terror, occasionally in hope, but often in horror. As seen here, the final iteration of this piece was completed in April of 2021. Tilted by the weight of crushed prescription pills across her crown of stars, the sorrowful mother’s head droops over her sacred heart pierced by syringes empty of vaccine, and her foot has slipped from the neck of the play currency serpent, while the angel below presents a hand embroidered battle flag which reads ‘The Opposite of Love Is Not Hate, It Is Apathy’. As a severely immunocompromised person, this pandemic, which so many believe to be over, has become a seemingly endless nightmare of immense loss, and I worry that the joyful whimsy has left my work when my love for thy neighbor has become fear.

Sarah Rieser is a former interior designer who turned her mid-life health crisis into a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her practice is funded through the commission of charcoal portraiture and handcrafted gifts (mostly of/for dogs and babies), as well as the production of upcycled jewelry, home goods, and seasonal decor for sale at arts & craft shows. Sarah’s work has been exhibited in fine art galleries since 2012, including a solo show at The Art House Chicago. During the pandemic, her piece Our Lady has appeared in Werks Issue 3, Artistonish Issue 8, Residual Believers Issue 2, and Quaranzine Volume IV contemporary visual art magazines. In 2022, her work is on view at Stola Contemporary Art Gallery Chicago, DragonFLY Gallery & Creative Spaces Chicago, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts California, Site:Brooklyn New York, San Fernando Valley Arts & Cultural Center California, HMVC Gallery New York, Koehnline Museum of Art Des Plaines, as well as the 12th Going Dutch Festival this June, Illinois’ annual celebration of female voices in the arts. She can be found online at sarah-rieser.tumblr.com or contacted directly at sarahrieser@comcast.net.