Trinity University is excited to announce the Neidorff Art Gallery Summer Artist-in-Residence program’s inaugural artist, Karen Mahaffy. Her three-month residency concludes with the solo exhibition Objects of Absence, kicking off the Neidorff Art Gallery’s 2022-23 exhibition season.

Mahaffy presents a site-specific installation that includes hand-made wallpaper, etched mirrors, along with mislaid, misused or wholly defunct domestic objects that invite the viewer to explore representations of transience, vulnerability, vanity, and hubris. Inspired by a collective time of solitude, personal loss and shared struggle, the pieces in the exhibition reveal the inherent sadness of familiar objects left behind. 

From the ordinary accumulations of everyday life, to the inherited custody of family heirlooms, the works in this exhibition – both made and manipulated – evoke our shared memories. Borrowing from the Victorian era and its “language of flowers,” decorative objects convey silent, enigmatic messages and stand as reminders of the fragility and brevity of life.