Arden Cone, an artist born and raised in South Carolina, unpacks Southern identity through her sculptures, paintings, and site-specific installations.

   In 2012, she received bachelor’s degrees in studio art and Spanish, graduating summa cum laude from Hollins University. In 2018, she earned a master’s degree in fine art from Boston University’s Painting Program. Since then, she has completed residencies at the Chautauqua Institute School of Fine Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Pike School of Art.

   She has exhibited her work widely across the US and was named a finalist for the 2017 $10,000 Arthur & Dorothy Yeck Award at Miami University. Arden immerses herself into the arts through art making, exhibiting, and writing for publications, including BURNAWAY, The Brooklyn Rail and her own One South Contemporary.

   In Arden’s artist statement, she said, “My work interprets the socio-political culture of the American South, acknowledging the history that has shaped its dominant worldview for centuries. In the nearly discarded refuse around my family’s farm, which I incorporate into my sculptures, paintings, prints, and installations, I feel out parallels that are descriptive of the Southern condition. Busted boards, battered pipe gates, and worn down tractor tires, all vestiges of the land, have suffered blows and distress through time’s irreverent passage. So have the people of the South.

   “The mileage takes its toll, both collectively and individually, the past informing outlooks on the present. It’s unthinkable pain lingers on, the hatchet yet unburied. Through my art, I expose the ways in which collective grief has torn apart the region’s societal fabric. Those who have archived this past have left a perilously imperfect tracing of time’s passage, leaving much of the story unaccounted for.”

Millicent Kennedy’s art collaborates with materials and time through performance, fiber, and print.

   The artist serves as the Curator of Exhibitions at the Fine Arts Center Gallery in Northeastern Illinois University and has previously served as the Gallery Director at Rockford University. They received a bachelor's degree from Northeastern Illinois University and master’s degree in fine arts from Northern Illinois University, where they were awarded the Helen Merritt Fellowship.

   They’ve received solo exhibitions from Belong Gallery, SXU Art Gallery, Roman Susan and Parlour and Ramp, as well as site specific installations with Charles Allis Art Museum, Terrain Exhibitions Biennial, and Purple Window Gallery. They have received artist residencies with Roman Susan, Terrain Exhibitions and Lillstreet Art Center.

   In Kennedy’s artist statement, they said: “If you manufacture for a specific desire what happens when that desire shifts? What are the repercussions on the physical object that’s still here? Tools of labor, like workers, are frequently disregarded, until they break down and can’t be used anymore.

   "Kennedy’s practice with found objects begins with dismantling inoperable tools and tech and quilting them between prismatic textiles frequently screen printed and dyed by the artist. These encapsulated objects conjure similarities to fossils. The objects are both preserved and buried. When they were produced, these advancements were created on a mass scale, and like all material culture, reflect our desires from their time of use.

   "These items, designed and built by so many hands, are held by hands once more to be dissected and shrouded, contrasting processes of labor, mass production and slow stitch.”