The Stamp Gallery is pleased to announce the artist residency of Charlotte Richardson-Deppe, who will utilize the Gallery as a studio, design lab, and performance venue to create wearable and installation-based soft sculptures from March 4 - April 6, 2024. Her residency will culminate in “I Resist This,” a new work of soft sculpture performance taking place at 7pm on Saturday, April 6.
Richardson-Deppe’s work posits that soft sculpture is social practice. By stitching together bodily forms and offering them to the public as interactive performances, Richardson-Deppe facilitates community meditations on interdependence and care. Through the gallery’s glass walls, the residency will provide a literal window into Richardson-Deppe’s creative process and strengthen the fundamental role of community engagement in her practice.
“I Resist This” addresses the inherent tension between independence and interdependence. Humans are fundamentally social creatures who often chafe against the social structures upon which we rely—we need other people in order to survive and thrive but we also crave freedom and independence. Through tension, weightsharing, and improvisation, performers and audience members will activate Richardson- Deppe’s wearables and soft sculptures to directly engage in the generative act of community.
Artist Bio: Charlotte Richardson-Deppe is a queer feminist artist working between performance and soft sculpture. She received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches drawing, sculpture, and photography as a lecturer in the Department of Art. In Fall 2023 she was the Bresler Resident Artist at VisArts and the Montgomery College Collaborative Artist-in-Residence in Rockville, MD. Her solo exhibition “Unfurling” is on display at VisArts through March 17, 2024.
This project was supported by the University of Maryland Department of Art Clarvit Endowed Faculty Fund in Art and Design. This exhibition and related programming is also supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council (msac.org) and a Pepsi Grant.
ABOUT THE GALLERY
Located on the first floor of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union—Center for Campus Life at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Stamp Gallery is dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art, especially the work of emerging and mid-career artists. The Stamp Gallery supports contemporary art that is challenging, academically engaging, and attuned to broad community and social issues. Through meaningful exhibitions and programming, the Gallery offers outside-of-the-classroom experiential learning opportunities. It functions as a laboratory where emerging artists and curators experiment and work through their ideas. The Gallery’s programming aims to emphasize the importance of process to contemporary artistic practice and to provide a forum for dialogue.
FREE and open to the public.
Spring hours: Mondays–Thursdays: 10 am – 8 pm, Fridays: 10 am – 5 pm, Saturdays: 11 am – 5 pm, Sundays: Closed. More information: stamp.umd.edu/gallery.