The “MATRIX” is an ever-evolving exhibition space at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Launched in 1974 through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the space was envisioned as an experimental platform for contemporary art. Over the last five decades, “MATRIX” has presented more than 1,000 works by over 160 artists, many of them early in their careers. The gallery has consistently served as a site for work that is challenging, provocative and firmly grounded in the present, frequently asking viewers to reconsider the boundaries of art itself.
In the current “MATRIX” exhibition, multidisciplinary artist and writer Steffani Jemison presents a richly layered inquiry into knowledge, perception and the symbolic language of the moment. The questions at the heart of this exhibition are: “How do we move? How are we moved by each other?” These questions serve as both a philosophical anchor and an invitation into a more embodied way of seeing. The exhibition is a collection of 16 pieces spanning years and many series of works. Jemison stated, “My work has something to do with the relationship between description and representation, with the tension between what can be read, what can be intuited, and what refuses to give up its secrets.”
Jemison, who is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, was born in Berkeley, California and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She earned her BA from Columbia University and an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Her practice spans writing, drawing, performance and moving imagery with an aim to navigate the physical, intellectual and spiritual with both ease and intention.