McKenzie Phelps | LUX Center for the Arts | Art Gallery, Classes, Summer Camps & Outreach
 

McKenzie Phelps

McKenzie Phelps

Artist
Profile Location
Omaha , NE
Biography

McKenzie Phelps was born in Brookings, SD. She completed her BFA at the University of Nebraska Omaha studying painting. After school she completed a residency at LUX Center for the Arts and began making patchwork quilts. She has shown at the LUX Center for the Arts, the Museum of Nebraska Art, and the International Quilt Museum. Her work explores her personal relationship to femininity and how she performs and experiences it.

Artist Statement

My work explores personal relationships to femininity and how one can perform and experience it. In my paintings, I utilize self-portraiture and attempt to perform a learned feminine identity. The results are clumsy, garish, and harsh. I aim to capture the obsessive desire of female perfection and the ultimate self-destruction that comes along with trying to alter yourself to fit the societal expectations.

When working in quilting, I use a traditional woman’s art form to explore the relationship between traditional and contemporary conceptions of femininity. Patchwork quilts act as symbols of comfort, safety and nostalgia. They hearken back to an era of the homemaker and remind us of the resourcefulness of women who could make something beautiful and meaningful out of scraps and leftovers. At the same time, quilts evoke an era of outdated and oppressive views towards women. A time when women were confined to the home and cornered in to the world of craft. Expressing my ambivalence, I challenge these feelings and render faceless nudes and parading high heeled legs that are frankly pretty and pornographic at the same time. I use language presented in bold block letters to highlight subtle misogyny common in our everyday conversation. Working in a palette dominated by luscious pinks and greens, I create work that boldly and playfully walks the line between the traditional and contemporary woman. 

Medium
Painting
Fiber / Textiles
 
 

Exhibitions Featuring this Artist

McKenzie Phelps
Jul
06
7/6/18 to 7/28/18
Painting
McKenzie Phelps
James Bockelman
Owen Buffington
Kim Darling
Tom Kreager
Brad Krieger
Louis LaBudda
Hannah McBroom
Lana Miller
Cathy Patterson
José Sierra
Dan Terpstra
May
21
5/21/19 to 8/24/19
Multiple Mediums
Crista Ann Ames
Jen Bockelman
Shannon Brock
Jessica Calderwood
Mandy Deal
Belle-Pilar Fleming
Camille Hawbaker Voorhees
Amy Jarding
McKenzie Phelps
Kate Running
Amy Schmierbach
Nancy Smith
Amanda Smith
Chris Taylor
Wendy Weiss
Celeste Butler
Jan
03
1/3/20 to 2/28/20
Fiber / Textiles
Brett Anderson
Owen Buffington
Matt Bukrey
Anne Burton
Jordan Buschur
Neil Celani
Heather Jo Davis
Lindsey Day
Matthew Dercole
Amanda Durig
Katelyn Farneth
Gerit Grimm
PJ Hargraves
Luke Huling
Anthony Park Kascak
G.V. Kelley
Brian Kluge
Michael Ian Larsen
Julia Leggent
Elise Loomis
Jon Love
Bartholomew Lynch
Kristen Martincic
Bri Murphy
Nathan Murray
Liana Owad
McKenzie Phelps
Jason Piccoli
Kristin Powers Nowlin
Kate Running
Bill Shaffer
Maria Spiess
Susan Stark-Johnson
Sara Truman
Stephanie Leach Vendetti
Cody Weber
Taylor Woolwine
Mar
04
3/4/22 to 5/27/22
Multiple Mediums

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