Krasl Art Center Showcases Material Memory Exhibition
Krasl Art Center Showcases Material Memory Exhibition to Kick Off 2026
On view from February 7 - May 9, KAC showcases the first 2026 exhibition: Material Memory. It explores how knowledge, history, and cultural memory are carried through objects and the act of making. Bringing together four artists working in ceramics, fiber, tapestry, and print, the exhibition centers analog processes, material investigation, and the slow accumulation of gesture and meaning.
"These works reveal the ways culture and personal histories are inherited, learned, and reinterpreted through labor, repetition, and intimate engagement with material and process. From hand-built ceramics and bead-encrusted vessels to tapestry constructions and meticulously carved relief prints, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how objects embody memory, mediate identity, and carry forward stories across generations. Through material, each artist traces the invisible threads of inheritance, crafting works that are at once deeply personal, culturally resonant, and universally evocative" stated Associate Curator, Meli Bandera.
Through hand-built ceramics, bead-encrusted vessels, pony-bead tapestries, and meticulously carved relief prints, the artists in Material Memory examine how culture and personal histories are inherited, learned, and reinterpreted through labor, repetition, and intimate engagement with material. These works ask viewers to consider how objects embody memory, mediate identity, and carry stories across generations.
Featuring:
Chris Salas (Ceramics)
Salas’s hand-built ceramic forms emerge through intuitive, iterative processes informed by personal relationships, historical research, and the ongoing legacy of colonization in the Americas. Clay becomes a vessel for cultural reckoning, holding layered histories through time-intensive making and surface.
Katie Mongoven (Fiber, Beading)
Mongoven transforms found blue-and-white ceramic vessels with intricate beadwork and embroidery. Her labor-intensive practice explores diasporic memory, identity reconstruction, and the reclamation of Orientalist objects through touch, repetition, and bodily presence.
akeylah wellington (Sculpture, Tapestry)
Wellington’s pony-bead tapestries and mixed-media sculptures blend humor, endurance, and personal history. Drawing on childhood imagery, early digital culture, and found materials, her work preserves stories of displacement, resilience, and generational inheritance.
Ramiro Rodriguez (Printmaking)
Rodriguez’s woodblock and linoleum relief prints document familial and cultural narratives rooted in Mexican-American print traditions. Through carving and layered printing, his work embeds memory, transformation, and inherited knowledge into the physical act of making.
Together, the artists in Material Memory use material as language—foregrounding slow, analog processes as acts of remembering, learning, and transmission. Their works are deeply personal yet culturally resonant, tracing the invisible threads of inheritance that bind past, present, and future.
Mark your calendar for the Public Preview Party on Friday, February 6 from
6 - 8 PM and Coffee with the Curator event Thursday, February 12 from
12 - 1 PM. The exhibition will be on view from February 7 - May 9.
For more information regarding the exhibitions, visit www.krasl.org
EXHIBITION SPONSORS: The Boulevard Inn & Bistro, COSY Classic Hits 103.7, 94.9 WSJM, and John DeVries Insurance Agency.
ABOUT KRASL ART CENTER:
Krasl Art Center provides southwest Michigan residents and visitors the opportunity to experience contemporary art exhibitions, new artist projects, and creative events, as well as art classes, camps, guest artist workshops, and community-wide programs. The center opened in 1980. Indoors, it houses galleries, art-making studios, and a gift shop. Outdoors it celebrates public art through sculpture placements on its campus and throughout the community. Krasl Art Center's mission is to inspire meaningful change and strengthen community through the visual arts. To learn more, visit krasl.org.
