July 19 - August 16, 2024
In Spite of It |Yvette L. Cummings

Artist Statement​
​For many years my work has explored the complicated path of youth, beauty, and femininity as expressed through the viewpoint of a sexual abuse survivor. As I watched my children in their youth, I reflected on the on the trauma I endured as a child and built imagery that reflected myself in them. The narratives woven into this work present the delayed, uncontrolled, and repetitive nature of a survivor’s response to trauma. The figures challenge our voyeuristic participation with the unease of their gestures and direct gaze. The compositions are purposeful in the postures of the figures. They represent their age, but as viewers, we bring our adult experiences to innocent play, scrutinizing adolescence and beauty.

Recently, I began pursuing a new project that focuses on issues surrounding the parenting of transgender children, changes in identity, and the increased regulation of the transgender community in the United States. While other artists explore the transgender community through personal struggles and oral histories, the perspective of parents of transgender children is rarely the central point of view. In Spite of It, is an exhibition which explores these concepts in tandem as a way to compare the similarities and differences between these experiences in my life. I am interested in the way bodies are not autonomous; whether the survivor of sexual assault, or the governments regulation, ownership of our bodies is not our own. Through this combined body of work, I empower the body regardless of history, gesture, appearance, or identity.

 Artist Bio
Cummings completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning. She is currently Associate Professor of Visual Arts in Painting/Drawing at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. Her work can be found in both public and private collections and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the south and mid-west of the United States. Cummings was selected as the inaugural solo exhibition, What is Withheld, for the international artist group, Art Mums United. She was a finalist in the Women’s United Art Prize 2022, received honorable mention in 2021, and was awarded First Place in the Disrupted Realism exhibition at Buckham Gallery in Flint, MI juried by John Seed. Cummings has been featured in the 701 Center for Contemporary Art South Carolina Biennial 2015 and 2019 in Columbia, SC, winner of the 2016 701 CCA Prize for artist under 40 in South Carolina, as well as Contemporary South at Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, NC.

​

Inventory

Kill your darlings
60”x60”
Oil on Panel, 2024
NFS

This too shall pass
Triptych, 3 - 30”x30”
Oil on Canvas, 2024
NFS

Everything’s Quiet
44”x72”
Oil on Canvas, 2024
NFS
​
Will you stay?
44”x72”
Oil on Canvas, 2024 
NFS

Sorrowful Contemplation (Pieta)
60”x37”
Oil on Canvas, 2023
NFS

The Disruptive Experience
70”x96”
Acrylic on Canvas, 2019
NFS

The Site of Experience
56”X40”
Oil on Canvas, 2020
NFS

No To Bad Things
36”x24”
Acrylic on Canvas, 2019
NFS

Can I have a ride?
70”x96”
Acrylic on Canvas, 2018
NFS

When the Magpie Came
48"X48"
Acrylic on Canvas, 2016
NFS