April 01 – 26
Mapping Scars:
Traces of Healing
Artists: CJ Cowden and Laura Cleary Williams
Guest Artists: Jai Gervin and Katie Hoffmeier
Mapping Scars: Traces of Healing is born from the aftermath of devastation—a reckoning with trauma so deep, it split the self apart. This exhibition does not soften the edges of that reality. It is rooted in a moment of profound rupture, when life nearly ended. What followed was not immediate healing, but a slow, uncertain return. A crawling back through memory, through silence, through the unbearable weight of what remained.
These works are not metaphors. They are testaments. Each one bears the imprint of pain that was lived, not imagined—pain that tore through the body, the spirit, and the mind. But in that tearing, something unexpected happened: the beginning of a map. A way through. Not away from the trauma, but into its depths, to understand it, to name it, and to survive it.
Faith, hope, and love are not presented here as comforts—they are lifelines. Fragile, hard-won, and at times nearly invisible, but always present. They are what kept the artist tethered to this world,
when everything else had fallen away. Through them, and through the courage to face the darkest truths, the work begins to shift—from raw survival to something more. A recognition. A rebuilding. A reaching out.
Mapping Scars is not a narrative of resolution. There is no neat ending here. But there is transformation. There is beauty carved from anguish, and grace held in the tension of what can never be fully repaired. These pieces hold space for the unspoken, the unbearable, and the sacred. They are offerings to anyone who has stood at the edge and found, somehow, the strength to step back.
Explore the Collection
CJ Cowden
Laura Cleary Williams
Jai Gervin
On View: April 01–12
On View: April 15–26
Katie Hoffmeier
More About the Works
Unseen
Unseen confronts the quiet tragedy of overlooked truths, urging viewers to open their eyes to the obvious-where attention could be compassion, and recognition could change everything.
As She Dreams
As She Dreams drifts through a
monochrome realm where splattered lines and thick pools of ink become fragments of a subconscious-chaotic yet intimate like thoughts unraveling in the stillness of sleep.
Beneath the surface, the abstract forms echo the residue of trauma-moments too sharp to remember clearly, yet too deep to forget. The piece captures the fragile space where healing begins: not in clarity, but in the raw, tangled beauty of what the mind dares to dream when it finally lets go.
Summoning Up Things Past I, II, III
These pieces evokes a quiet summoning of what once was, the ghosts of forgotten childhoods, its crackled Victorian doll face texture echoing the fragile remnants of what time refuses to preserve.
Stitch me back together
Stitch me back together with barbed wire and threads of gold that carry his name ignore the tears. I’ll heal for you with a strength that glistens.
Stitch Me Back Together winds through tangled ink like barbed wire—sharp, chaotic, unresolved—yet laced with delicate threads of gold oil paint. That carries a name. The artist whispers, Ignore the tears. I’ll heal for you, with a quiet strength that glistens, not in spite of the pain, but because of it.
Oh the Song so Sweet
Oh the song so sweet, only a memory away, held in my heart until I see you again one day.
In the quiet corners of my heart, your song still plays—sweet, familiar, just a memory away. I carry it with me through the days without you, holding on until we’re together again, wherever that may be. This piece is about death and one day being reunited
Mute Forbearance
A wall sculpture that embodies the quiet ache of being unprotected—the sharpness left behind when someone who could have spoken up chose not to. The jagged wood spikes jutting outward represent tremendous hurt and deep disappointment, while the black that coats them is the color of sadness because of the lost trust.
You Let me Be
“You Let Me Be” is a visual surrender—a plea for old pain to loosen its grip. Through ink and charcoal, this piece captures the intimate struggle of release and the fragile hope of healing.
I Found a Type of Peace
“I Found a Type of Peace” is a meditation on hope and quiet transformation. It captures the tension between heaviness and light, offering a glimpse of the peace that can emerge even in the shadow of the past.
You are Restless
“You Are Restless” investigates what it means to move through the world marked by past pain. A portrait of endurance and visibility, this piece honors the strength in being seen and the restlessness of a body that remembers.