NEW YORK, NY.- Cristin Tierney Gallery is presenting Vibrational Vulnerability, a solo exhibition of rarely seen paintings and drawings from the estate of Audra Skuodas (1940-2019). This is the artist's first solo show with the gallery and the first exhibition of her work in New York in over fifteen years. Vibrational Vulnerability will be on view through January 17th, 2025.
Skuodas epitomizes the "under-recognized artist." Virtually unknown to a larger audience throughout her life, her oeuvre found greater attention only after her death when it was prominently featured in the 2022 Cleveland Triennial: Front. Over the past several years, museums such as the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art have begun acquiring and exhibiting her work. A major museum is planning a retrospective exhibition with a publication.
Despite a lifetime of relative obscurity, Skuodas' work resonates with profound depth and a distinctive voice that challenges conventional boundaries of perception and form. Perpetually experimenting with materials, she explored beads, sequins, and vibrant fabrics, creating rigid and soft sculptures alongside quilts, books, and jewelry. Her paintings and drawings--initially aligned with Surrealism before transitioning to abstraction starting in the 1980s—are where she gained renown the most.
Vibrational Vulnerability features figurative and abstract paintings, works on paper, and unique stitched drawings from her Womb Wound series. As a soul-searcher who studied science, mysticism, and Eastern religions, Skuodas sought to convey universality in her art. She blended geometric form with emotional intelligence and the feminine. In her later years, Skuodas' thinking was informed by what she called "the law of limits: that invisible phenomenon of tension and attraction which maintains the cosmic order."
Highlighted in Vibrational Vulnerability is Skuodas' painting Sensitive Pulsations, which mixes geometric precision and patterns with a cosmic supernatural sensibility. At first glance, the composition appears structured yet ethereal. Misty layers of blue, pink, yellow, and orange create an expansive sense of depth, drawing parallels to the vastness of space and the intangible forces that shape our universe. Geometric shapes interplay with subtle, organic forms, hinting at an underlying harmony.
Emblematic of Skuodas' quest for knowledge, the paintings in Vibrational Vulnerability combine scientific inquiry with mystical introspection. They beckon the viewer into a contemplative space where alternative narratives and perspectives converge, urging them to reconsider their relationship with the cosmos and our place within it.
Audra Skuodas (1940-2019) was born in Lithuania and lived for six years in a displaced persons camp in Germany before coming to the U.S. in 1949. She became a US citizen in 1961 and earned a B.A. and M.A. at Northern Illinois University. She taught and exhibited her work throughout her career, and was associated with institutions such as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Oberlin College. She exhibited in Chicago with Richard Gray, and in New York with Moti Hassan, as well as at regional spaces in the Cleveland area. In 2010, she received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award.
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission.
