Inside the Art, Outside Ourselves is a series of workshops that each invite you to spend time reflecting on a specific artwork from our main exhibition, Celestial Bodies, curated by Neena Wang. Through guiding prompts and conversation, we encourage you to dig deeper into the work, think meaningfully about the ideas presented, and to respond with drawing or writing exercises. Artists to be featured include Marina Peng, Yiran Guo, and In Kyoung Chun.
This month, we’ll be looking at Marina Peng’s works, inner circle (vicious cycle) & Fear of new (for me, for you), and talking about the Chinese Zodiac, constellations, and star charts.
Marina Peng is a multimedia artist from St. Louis, MO currently working across fiber, sculpture, and photography. She received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She has exhibited her work locally and regionally at spaces including ACRE Projects, Dream Clinic Project Space, Duane Reed Gallery, G-CADD, Goldfinch, The Kranzberg, The Luminary, and PLUG. She has attended residencies at ACRE, Caldera Arts, Craft Alliance, Elsewhere, the Hambidge Center, Otis College of Art & Design, and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent awards include a Puffin Foundation Grant and a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. In addition to her practice, she is a co-organizer of PSA:, a citywide public art initiative in St. Louis.
In her practice, Marina Peng examines her position as a second-generation American in the Midwest. She explores the humor, pain, and irony within this position by depicting the vicious cycles that exist within her family, dual cultures, and herself. Using handweaving and punch needle techniques, she creates textile works featuring scenes of physical struggle, circular patterns, and isolation to represent the internalization of these cycles.