Jacqueline Surdell: Adoration Garden

Scrappy and interpretive, Jacqueline Surdell hand-manipulates dock cord — weaving and knotting the line into naturalistic, sculptural installations that are antagonistically positioned between the human body and sculpture. The industrial material and physically demanding process playfully orbit techniques, colors and forms associated with domesticity. The works trace the artist’s family history and private life while fostering discussion around labor, gender, and sexuality. 

Surdell’s 2023 AEIVA exhibit, titled Adoration Garden, will explore memory and time as material — transforming AEIVA’s Gallery One into a space of play, contemplation, power, drive and creation.  

Jacqueline Surdell is from Chicago, IL.  The city’s history of industry, labor and Midwest grit plays a significant role in Surdell’s work.  She received a BA from Occidental College in Los Angeles and her MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Her recent solo and group exhibitions include Devening Projects, Chicago; Library Street Collective, Detroit; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Bedford Gallery, San Francisco and international shows in Japan, Belgium, and the Netherlands.