Wesleyan University Thesis Show

REMAINS

Lydia Tonkonow’s undergraduate thesis show, REMAINS, opened at Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery in spring of 2017. It was developed in part through the Jamie A. Hulley Arts Foundation Studio Arts Grant Award.

REMAINS explores the relationships between object, memory, and agency through imagery from art and natural history. The work focuses on the human desire to preserve— both objects and experiences. Tonkonow’s process recontextualizes bodies and spaces fixed in time, questioning what it means to be both an embodiment of the past and traverse onwards through constructed immortality.

Many of the specimens included in Tonkonow’s work were painted from life thanks to the generous support of the Wesleyan Anthropology and Archaeology Collections.

2014 - 2016 →