A new exhibit ”Gestures of Resistance” by Rachel Breen opens Jan. 16 in the Kiehle Gallery on the St. Cloud State University campus.
The exhibit runs through Feb. 8 and features an exhibit that serves as a call to action. Breen’s work features mostly textile assemblages made from used clothing, some of which were made during Breen’s Fullbright Fellowship in India where she examined fair trade initiatives, reuse strategies and sustainable fabric printing and dying traditions.
All of these works included in the exhibit are meant to aid in helping the public recognize the hard of overconsumption on workers and the planet, and the need to change how we consume our clothing. Breen’s work signals the importance of organizing collectively — the type of action Breen believes is needed to change the global garment industry, address climate change and express with the workers who make clothing.
SCSU’s Department of Art will hold an opening reception in the gallery from 1-3 p.m. on Jan. 31. Breen will give an artist talk in the gallery beginning at 1:15 p.m. during the reception and the talk is open to the public.
Breen’s work has been shown widely across the country, including a solo exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2020. Her solo exhibition, The Price of Our Clothes,” at the Perlman Museum was Included in the top 20, best of 2018, exhibitions in the US by Hyperallergic (December 20, 2018). Breen was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to India in 2022 and has been awarded artist residencies at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Willapa Bay AiR. Breen is an inaugural recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, has received four Minnesota State Arts Board grants and a fellowship from the Walker Art Center Open Field. Upcoming exhibitions in 2024 include a solo exhibition the Watermark Center in Bemidji in January, group exhibitions at Real Art Ways in Hartford Connecticut in February and Artistry in Bloomington in March and a solo exhibition at ArtStart in Rhinelander Wisconsin in May.
The Kiehle Gallery is located in the Kiehle Visual Arts Center on the campus of St. Cloud State. The gallery hours are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
