Erica Fitzgerald
Photo: Meredith Hislope
Erica Fitzgerald is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice follows linear relationships between feminine labor, earth, and familial traditions through the lens of material change. She earned her MFA in New Media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and her BFA in Sculpture from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Her work has been nationally exhibited in California, Chicago, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Texas, and internationally in both Ireland and Iceland.
Statement
“If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then next day you probably do much the same again--if to do that is human, if that's what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.”
- Ursula K. Le Guin “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”
This work focuses on the intersection of material, labor, and gender, drawing from historical narratives tied to eco-based material making found in textile production. Through large-scale sculptures, weavings, and installations, I explore themes of feminine labor, generational ritual, and the political erosion of women’s autonomy. The historical act of mending—stitching, patching, and repairing torn fabric, traditionally a labor of care performed by women, becomes a metaphor for strength, resilience, and community.
Making sculptures, performances, and installations using my body, fibers, soil, and clay to explore life cycles that connect women throughout history. By materializing laborious making practices, I place the body in (landscape) space as oversized open-weave basketry structures to tie generational tradition with historical land trauma. The uses of labor, touch, weight, and pain are essential to the working of a wet clay body or a native fiber into a manipulated object through movement and gesture. This process investigates restrictions and their connection to the process of maneuvering a tactile material that responds to my deliberate touch. It is both a literal and symbolic act of reclaiming what has been damaged, reflecting women’s enduring role as creators and restorers in the face of societal fractures.