Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves

Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves is the fifth exhibition in a series that invites an artist to create a museum community space devoted to art, conversation, and contemplation. Yvette Molina presents new art and designs in this site-specific and evolving installation centered around the four elements—earth, air, water, fire—and a fifth constituent, the cosmos. In focusing on these ancient, fundamental substances, Molina reminds us that humans, plants, and all earthly beings are made of star stuff and survive by the elements. She encourages us to consider care as entangled within circles of life—care for one another, whether human or non-human, is care for ourselves and for all. Throughout the exhibition’s two years, Molina is inviting other artists to present their work in the space, bringing together multiple perspectives, styles, and materials and regularly re-energizing the installation’s balance between comfort and provocation.
Yvette Molina is a Mexican-American artist focused on the relationship between justice and care. Her work, often emanating from her community engagement and activism, incorporates processional banners, ritual, storytelling, costumes, collage, painting, and sculpture. Molina has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including at the Stockholm Fringe Festival, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Arsenal Contemporary Art, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NADA FAIR, and the Legion of Honor and de Young Museums of California. Molina lives in Oakland, California.
Exhibition Name
Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves
Exhibition Type
Solo Exhibitions
Place
State Farm Mezzanine Gallery
Dates
Oct 21, 2023 - Sep 14, 2025
Curators
Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves is organized by Associate Curator Rebecca McNamara, in collaboration with the artist.
Artists
Mona Cliff, Nancy Cohen, Bel Falleiros, Joshua-Michele Ross, Ann Lewis, Yvette Molina, Joy Muller-McCoola, Mónica Palma, Cinthya Santos-Briones, Ruby Sky Stiler
Student Staff
Naima nigh 2022
Naima Nigh
2022-23 Eleanor Linder Winter Endowed Intern, Student Advisory Council, Tang Guide
Past: Tang Guide
Mel standing in front of a grey-white brick wall and a concrete wall.
Mel Douer
2023-24 Charina Endowment Fund Endowed Intern, Student Advisory Council Chair, Curatorial Intern, Tang Guide
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Chiara Garcia-Ugarte
Student Advisory Council Chair, past: 2023-24 Carole Marchand Endowed Intern, Registrarial Intern, Tang Guide
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Willa Flink
Registrarial Intern, Student Advisory Council
Helen headshot2022
Helen Branch
Registrarial Intern, 2022-23 Carole Marchand Endowed Intern, Student Advisory Council, Tang Guide
Anchor name: Gallery Iterations

Gallery Iterations

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Activate: July 20, 2024 – December 8, 2024
Listen: March 22, 2024 – July 14, 2024
Welcome: October 21, 2023 – March 21, 2024
Anchor name: Guest Artists
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Guest Artists

Mona Cliff (art on view July 20, 2024–present) is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores contemporary Indigenous identity and culture through traditional Indigenous crafting methods, including seed bead embroidery and fabric appliqué. An enrolled member of the Gros Ventre tribe (A’aniiih/Nakota Nations) of Fort Belknap, Montana, Cliff has exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Arts, Kansas City, Missouri; the Kansas City International Airport; and many others. She earned a BFA in printmaking from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and is currently based in Lawrence, Kansas.

Nancy Cohen (art on view December 14, 2024–present) experiments with paper pulp, pigments, and transformed found glass to create unique sculptures and large-scale drawings. Her work explores the fragility and resilience of waterways and other natural environments, focusing on how these ecosystems and the human experience respond to organic changes over time. Cohen’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Museum of the University of Memphis; Montclair Art Museum; New Jersey State Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; and Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. She has been the recipient of the NYFA Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award, multiple fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Denbo Fellowship at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center, and the Pollock-Krasner Grant. Now based in Jersey City, New Jersey, Cohen received her BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, her MFA from Columbia University, as well as studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Bel Falleiros (art on view October 21, 2023–March 21, 2024) is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in New York and whose practice focuses on place and belonging. She has worked to create spaces for grounding and connecting people, stories, nature and place, at Pecos National Park, New Mexico (2016); Burnside Farm, Detroit (2017); Santa Fe Art Institute’s Equal Justice Residency, in collaboration with Tewa Women United, New Mexico (2018); Socrates Sculpture Park, New York (2020); The Border Project, New York (2021); and Panorama da Arte Brasileira, São Paulo (2022–23). She was a More Art Engaging Artist Fellow (2021) and an artist-in-residence for the Dia: Teens Program (2021–22) and is a Wave Hill Sunroom Project fellow, presenting a solo exhibition there in fall 2023. She is the founder of the group Manxs Americanxs (2018–current), a gathering group that connects women and non-binary people from Latin America living in New York and working with issues of culture, immigration, and identity. Beyond her studio practice, she participates in collaborative projects across the Americas connecting art, education, and autonomous thinking.

Ann Lewis (art on view March 22–July 14, 2024), based in Providence, Rhode Island, is a multidisciplinary activist artist who uses public space and participatory performances to respond to current social and political issues. She incorporates painting, installation, and sculpture to explore themes related to American identity, power structures, and justice, such as gentrification, women’s rights, and police brutality. Her work is informed by engaging affected communities and reflects relevant scientific data through the intuitive use of concept-specific materials. Her work has been acquired by the New-York Historical Society and the US Library of Congress, and she has received several large-scale public art commissions including at the Pittsburgh International Airport and at the Duolingo headquarters in Pittsburgh. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows throughout the United States and abroad, including at the Petzel Gallery, New York; the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit; and the Seyhoun Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran. Lewis earned her MFA in digital media from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BFA in graphic arts and furniture making from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Joy Muller-McCoola (art on view May 9–present) creates felt sculptures, ranging widely from meditation stones to hats, and large-scale installations that address environmental issues such as migration, climate change, and the relationship between the industrial and natural. She has exhibited at The Hyde Collection; Arlington Center for the Arts; Albany Center Gallery; and the Schweinfurth Art Center, among others. Muller-McCoola was born in the Bronx, raised in Long Beach, New York, and is currently based in Glens Falls, New York; she received her BA from New York University and her MS from SUNY Albany.

Mónica Palma (art on view March 22–July 14, 2024), born in Mexico City and based in Brooklyn, New York, is a multidisciplinary artist working across drawing, sculpture, and performance. She views drawing as the optimal vehicle for the articulation of her ideas and as the most immediate form of contact between idea and object. Palma has exhibited at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York; 245 Varet Street, New York; Ortega y Gasset Projects, New York; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Underdonk, New York; Dixon Place, New York; and Soloway Gallery, New York. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Artforum, and Temporary Art Review. Palma earned her MFA in painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University and studied visual art at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz.

Joshua-Michele Ross (art on view December 14, 2024–present) is a conceptual and sound-based artist whose work centers on time, ecology, and the restorative power of listening. In response to a visually overstimulating world, he uses listening as a disarming medium for revelation, enchantment, and increased connection with the more-than-human world. Ross has exhibited at Mengi, Reykjavík; The Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University, Georgia; Grand Central Art Center at California State University Fullerton; and Pasaquan, Georgia. His work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, the Los Angeles Times, and KCET Los Angeles, and it was featured as one of the best immersive shows of 2021 in No Proscenium magazine. In 2023, Ross was the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation grant through an ongoing residency with Grand Central Art Center. He lives and works in Oakland, California.

Cinthya Santos-Briones (art on view October 21, 2023–March 21, 2024), born in Mexico, is a visual artist, educator, and cultural organizer with indigenous Nahua roots based in New York. Her art focuses on a multidisciplinary social practice that combines participatory art and the construction of collective narratives through photography, historical archives, writing, ethnography, drawings, collage, embroidery, and popular education. Her work has been shown in galleries across the country and published in the New York Times, Vogue, Open Society Foundations, Buzzfeed, the Intercept, the New Yorker, and the Nation Magazine, among others. She is co-author of the book The Indigenous Worldview and its Representations in Textiles of the Nahua community of Santa Ana Tzacuala, Hidalgo. She has worked at pro-immigrant organizations in New York as a community organizer on issues such as detection, education, and sanctuary. She holds an MFA in creative writing and photography from Ithaca-Cornell and teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

Ruby Sky Stiler (art on view May 9–September 27, 2024) is a mixed-media, multi-dimensional artist incorporating acrylic paint, resin, paper, wood, and various other materials in her relief paintings, collages, and sculptures. Her art is inspired by a range of time periods and artistic movements, including classical antiquity and Cubism and explores ideas of disruption, gender stereotypes, and authority. She has exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Nicelle Beauchene Gallery; The Picture Gallery of Saint-Gaudens Memorial; Art Basel Miami Beach; and the Tang Teaching Museum, among others. Stiler, born in Portland, Maine, and based in New York, received her MFA from Yale School of Art and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

Anchor name: Helping Hands

Helping Hands

In October 2023 and again in March 2024, Skidmore College students assisted artist Yvette Molina in transforming thrifted wooden chairs into works of functional art using cardboard, paper mache, paper clay, and pigment. These helping hands are an essential component of Lito, Auntie, Nibling, Pet, and Nana (Sunshine Rocker).
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