It’s a Fine Line

Stephanie Howard // Khara Woods

Sheet Cake Gallery presents a new exhibition, It’s a Fine Line, of work from Stephanie Howard (Greenville, SC) and Khara Woods (Memphis, TN). In their work, Howards and Woods reflect on the passage of time, where repetition and meticulous linework become meditations on their anxieties about mortality and personal experiences. 

Howard is inspired by work from self-taught artists, rich traditions of Southern storytelling and folklore, and her own experiences navigating patriarchal systems and bureaucracies. Her work has a decidedly Southern Gothic sensibility, with touches of the mythical and wild throughout. Her pen on paper pieces primarily feature images of children and women that represent a desire to maintain an innocent curiosity in moving through the world, and claiming power both for herself and the women in her life. The intricate patterns and lines in her work come from an introspective practice of compulsive drawing, allowing her the opportunity to slow down and ruminate on the human experience. By immersing herself in her creative process, she finds refuge from the existential dread that often accompanies thoughts of impermanence. These drawings suspend a moment in time for Howard, but she intentionally leaves her narratives open-ended allowing the viewer ample room to understand the work in their own ways. 

Woods continues her exploration of geometric forms, a long family history of making, and a deep love for architecture. Clean lines, saturated color, and precise shapes dominate her sculpture and painting practice. Like Howard, she is also contemplating time’s unimpeded march forward and a fear of the future in this new body of work. The life cycles of stars captured Woods’ imagination appearing as the abstracted shape of a star reaching out in four directions, reminiscent of a supernova’s impending colossal explosion. We use these celestial bodies to create a sense of order, marking time and measuring unimaginable distances. And yet, they are completely beyond our reach and full comprehension. Through her use of these images in the context of her fastidious studio practice, Woods attempts to exert her own tenuous control and honor the complexities of the universe in which we exist. In these works, Woods is also expanding her color palette, adding new facets and hues of colors that she is consistently drawn to using.