Pip Brant, Tabled Reports: Disasters and Other Stories

February 4 - May 20, 2006

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Pip Brant re-contextualizes news reports and moral debates onto vintage tablecloths that are embellished with embroidery, dyes, and silk screened images. Her newest work, included in this exhibition, addresses the recent and tragic disasters of the last few years: the hurricanes in Florida and the Gulf Coast, the Tsunami of 2004, and other stories.

Tabled Reports: Natural Disasters and Other Stories presents the recent work of Florida artist Pip Brant. In this series, Brant has transformed tablecloths—all vintage, found objects, many from the 1950's—with stories found in the today's headlines and news reports. These domestic remnants from the decade of I Love Lucy and the McCarthy era provide an apt backdrop on which to consider topics of national concern in the early 21st Century. Natural disasters, morality debates, and sensationalist reportage all find their way onto Brant's unconventional canvases. She says of this series:

The depiction of public tragedy on these domestic pieces of cloth, once used to shelter a piece of furniture used to feed a basic human clan, is converted into a narrative that seeks to relocate states of social disarray. These tablecloths can resume their original postures and once again cover tables, but instead of providing somnambulist visual muzak for the dinner guest, they will be invited to consider the social implications of issues normally swept under the table. Potential dinner guests will be left to question . . . what will be served.

Subjects presented include those of the dramatic hurricane seasons of the last few years in Florida and the Gulf Coast to the fears of SARS, Mad Cow Disease, and Avian Flu. Personal stories range from public personalities such as Martha Stewart to the tragically personal story of a young Mexican girl who underwent two heart-lung transplant operations.

Brant received her BFA from the University of Montana (1976) and her MFA from the University of Wyoming (1992). She has received Fellowship Awards from the South Florida Cultural Consortium (2003) and the Wyoming Arts Council (1992). She has had artist residencies through the Hungarian Multicultural Exchange, the Fulbright Exchange Program, Ucross Foundation, and Jentel. Her work has been exhibited internationally. A professor of art at Florida International University, she lives in Hollywood, Florida.

• Funded by the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum and the Wyoming Arts Council through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature.

Images:

Left: Pip Brant, Prions of Mad Cow, Found cloth, dye, discharge 48 x 48 inches

Center: Pip Brant, 04 Hurricane Season, 2004, found cloth, dyes, embroidery, 48 x 63 in.

Right: Pip Brant, Excess Baggage, 2003, discharge, dyes, ink on found cloth, 50 x 70 in.