Artists' Statement

This exhibition offers a collective meditation on family and relationships. It explores the beauty, as well as the complexity, contradictions, and demands. Featuring the work of four artists—Mary Beth Koszut (Professor of Art & Digital Media, Olivet University), Sandra Houghton (PhD candidate, University of Minnesota), Sylvia Ramachandran Skeen (Assistant Professor of Visual Art, BYU), and Tara Carpenter Estrada (Associate Professor of Art Education, BYU)—the show explores the complex work of family relationships.

Mary Beth Koszut’s domestic surrealism and Tara Carpenter Estrada’s devotional tributes to everyday life speak to the messiness and grace of caregiving.

Sylvia Ramachandran Skeen’s layered ceramic forms examine how memory shapes our identities and sense of self.

Sandra Houghton’s fragile clay armor and ceramic sculptures reveal the tension between protection and vulnerability, reflecting how familial roles require both openness and boundaries.

Each artist, in their own way, navigates the intricacies of connection: Who do we belong to, and how? How do past experiences reverberate through present and future relationships?

Together, these works offer a nuanced, multifaceted reflection on what it means to be in relation—to others, to ourselves, and to the stories we carry.