UNDERWENT - Marguerite Perret

September 25, 2024 - March 25, 2025

The artists in this exhibition use their practices to express, research, and process personal experiences. The art practice becomes a partner in the evolution of understanding, the continual processing of something they have undergone. A variety of mediums and techniques within this exhibition reveal a glimpse into an ongoing exchange. In the artwork, an idea of feeling can escape. this visual release allows the artist to externalize and examine an experience in its fluctuating moments, intricacies, and depths. Vulnerability is present in the sharing of a personal experience that allows an internal dialogue to manifest outside of ourselves and resonate with others.

One of the featured artists in this exhibition is Marguerite Perret. "Last resort" refers to an action taken only when there is no other option. Perret's installation is a reflection on the memories and difficulties the artist faced packing up her aging mother's house. This process was exacerbated by her mother's struggles with dementia and mental illness.

Perret's parents had moved to a small southern town in search of the resort lifestyle. But, her mother often experienced loneliness and found that her "resort" expectations were built on a marketing myth. The situation exacerbated her life-long struggle with mood disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The latter took the form of repetitive hand washing, the act of which suppressed obsessive thoughts and calmed the persistent and overwhelming anxieties. Later, Perret's mother was diagnosed with mild to moderate Alzheimer's Disease, multiplying the intensity of her obsessive behaviors.

Marguerite Perret conducts arts-based research through a social issue-engaged studio practice that examines the complications and sometimes contradictory narratives inherent in the interstices of art, science, healthcare, and personal experience. Perret is currently a Professor of Art and Design at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas where she teaches digital imaging, foundations design, art and ecology, and science and art.

Marguerite Perret, Last Resort (detail), 2015