1878 Gallery

March 2 - May 26, 2024

ArtWalk Reception
Saturday, March 2, 2024
6 – 9 PM
Artist talk at 6:30 PM

These exhibitions are supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Artist accommodations generously provided by Hotel Lucine.

Annie Arnold
Tourist, Tour-est

Tourist, Tour-est is an exhibition of embroidered works on canvas and a slide show created by Austin-based artist, Annie Arnold. These new works humorously consider how social media and our attention economy is influencing how we approach and document our travel. In Arnold’s new body of work, she cross-stitches found text from aspirational globetrotting experiences and displays them as homemade diplomas and certificates made with raw, unstretched canvas, and trim that references varsity letter jackets. Using this analog method of self-display (hanging one’s degree on the wall), Arnold plays with ideas about credentials and accolades, and jokingly highlights the competition and comparison aspects of our conversations about visiting other places. The exhibition also includes a series of new merit badges, an ongoing body of work where Arnold designs and produces embroidered patches based on peoples’ posted social media pictures.

Arnold’s slide show features a curated selection of Instagram pictures people have posted while visiting pyramids.  It draws parallels between the dreaded vacation slide shows of the 1960s and 70s, and the voluntary scroll of voyeurism we engage in with our phones. The slide show is also about novelty, self-expression, and how far we’ve come as amateur photographers.

In addition to the exhibition, Arnold has partnered with the Visit Galveston to create 7 new merit badges related to Galveston tourism specifically, which will also be on display in this exhibition.  

Annie Arnold is a visual artist bemused by the social and cultural phenomena of narcissism.  Favoring iterative craft techniques, such as needlepoint and crochet, she makes art both as a distraction from and a reference to social media.  Her work explores our attempts to offset the shame of being ordinary and highlights the staggering amounts of time we dedicate to thinking and talking about ourselves.  She earned her BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin, and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas, College of Art and Design, Denton, TX.  

Arnold has participated in exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin, Austin,TX; New American Paintings, exhibition-in-print; grayDUCK Gallery, Austin, TX; the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas, Austin, TX; and the Salina Arts Center, Salina, KS; among others.  She has been curated into group shows by curators: Jennie Goldstein, Whitney Museum of American Art; Andrea Karnes, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Suzanne Weaver, San Antonio Museum of Art; Christina Rees, former Editor-in-Chief of Glasstire.com;  and Tyler Blackwell, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Museum.  Arnold is also a recent alum of The Contemporary Austin’s Crit Group program. In 2012, her project Needed Fabulousness took her to New York Fashion Week wearing a dress she printed herself. In 2022, Arnold collaborated with the Austin Brewery Thirtsy Planet Brewing Co., in partnership with Big Medium, to produce the concept beer Werk Ethic as part of the Austin Studio Tour. Arnold currently lives and works in Austin, TX.

www.anniearnold.com