The “Load We Carry” is a space that hosts two exhibitions in conversation about domesticity, motherhood, and responsibility. In it, individuals can see themselves reflected in the multiple artworks exhibited, which display human relationships and all the happenings that take place in the space they inhabit. In its honesty and rawness, this exhibition reflects what many families live daily, and by creating a conversation, these dynamics are celebrated.

In“The Domestic Realm”, Amanda Schilling’smakes work about gender, identity, and the societal pressure onwomen to reach unattainable standards of perfection in order to achieve the “American dream”. In our makeover-obsessed, social-media-driven society where only our best selves are shared with the world, Schilling’s workilluminates those things that we might otherwise try to hide. She debunks the myth of the perfect family whereeveryone is always smiling, children never misbehave, everything is always clean, and mothers easily master alltasks necessary to keep it that way. In her“Wife, Mother, Woman”series, Schilling candidly photographs mothersgoing through the motions, highlighting otherwise unseen moments in their daily lives. For other projects such as“Trappings of Domesticity”, she turns the camera on herself focusing on the messiness of life andall the things thatultimately suppress women’s desires and ability to truly be themselves. Her images can be at times both humorousand dark, but they’re always honest.

About Amanda Schilling

Amanda Schilling (b. 1981, Texas) is a photographic artist living in South Florida whose work explores the ideas ofdomesticity and the roles women play within that realm. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from TexasA&M University (2006) and her MFA in Photography from the University of Houston (2019) where she was also aTeaching Fellow and Holt-Wich Scholar.Schilling’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. andabroad. She has been published in PINT Magazine (2021), Italian magazine iO Donna Corriere della Sera, (2020),and Los Angeles Contemporary Art Magazine Art & Cake (2019). Schilling’s work is in the permanent collections oftheUniversity of Houston and Lamar University, Beaumont, TX as well as numerous private collections.

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Megan Hildebrandt “The Living Room”, centered around motherhood, will feel simultaneously enormous and intimate. The artist wants the viewer to understand their body as one that both gives care and receives care. Audiences of all ages and backgrounds will see themselves-their lives, their lived experiences-reflected in this exhibition. This exhibition features drawing and animation to examine Hildebrandt’s experience of motherhood. She employs a variety of scales and techniques-from small, postcard-sized works to large-scale projects. Theenvironment feels half like a living room, and half like a comic book.

“I am a cancer survivor and mother. These life events have significantly impacted my creative practice. Confrontingmy own mortality at age 25 and then experiencing the fragility and strength of birth, I have become obsessed withtracking time-documentingthe small, routine moments of my and mychildrens’lives. I am interested in content andparts of life that loop and repeat. I want to give the viewer intimate, personal-yet universal-moments that capturethe short and endless seconds of being alive. Theimmediacy of drawn or painted marks suits me best. I try to fixthe fleeting moments of physical and psychological change and growth into a single image. My current workdocuments the break-neck period of growth and evolution I witness everyday in my 8 year-old and three month-old.

About Megan Hillerbrandt

Megan Hildebrandt received her BFA from the Stamps School of Art & Design in 2006, and her MFA in Studio Artfrom the Universityof South Florida in 2012. Hildebrandt has exhibited widely, including: The Painting Center, NewAmerican Paintings, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Craft, Arlington Arts Center,Detroit Contemporary, Johns Hopkins Medical Center, the LIVESTRONG Foundation, Hyde Park Art Center, TheTorpedo Factory, and The Painter’s Room. In 2018, Hildebrandt received an Art Works grant from the NationalEndowment for the Arts for the Aesthetics of Health Course she developed for Interlochen Arts Academy.Hildebrandt has also recently had her writing on arts pedagogy during the pandemic published in Art Education,The Journal of the National Art Education Association. Forthcoming publications include an article in the AmericanMedical Association Journal of Ethics.An artist, educator, cancer survivor, and mother of two, Hildebrandt currently lives and works in Austin, Texas,where she is the Associate Chair and Director of the First-Year Core Program in the Department of Art and ArtHistory at The University of Texas.

On view: Bailey Contemporary Arts - July 1 through September 27, 2022