A spokesperson describes the event as follows:
“...Certainly Uncertain, an exhibition of sculptural work by Dallas-based artist Kaleta Doolin. The exhibition presents new advancements in the artist’s career-long investigation into historical modes of representation of female bodies and femininity in global art. For the last five decades, Doolin’s multi-dimensional body of work has counterbalanced hard materials against soft forms. Her use of industrial metals, stone, and fibers evoke the inherent dichotomy at the center of feminine subjectivity.
Certainly Uncertain recalls symbols from art history and the domestic sphere, reimagining contemporary womanhood outside of masculine constructs. Trained in metal smithing and domestic craft at a young age, Doolin’s sculptural work explores the intersections of these contrasting trades. Often her process takes subjects traditionally related to the domestic sphere—patchwork quilts, lace, florals—and recreates their forms in sturdier materials. This interplay of hard/soft and masculine/feminine, investigates gender expression through material experimentation. In this way, she continues the work of pioneering women sculptors from the late 20th century. Following the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, and Anette Messager, Doolin subverts hersubjects’ natural forms into earnest objections to social and physical conformity.
Many of Doolin’s sculptures emphasize the expressive qualities of their inexpressive materials. The artist’s Laughing Momma series began in the early 1970s as a modernist reimagining of ancient fertility idols. Their smooth, abstracted bodies present an exaggerated image of female bodies, specifically mothers, outside of their cultural context. Laughing Momma (2025) is a cast-bronze iteration of the series. The work presents an abstracted female body with raised arms and exposed breasts. Its surface is patinaed with cool-toned hues giving the bronze a skin-like complexity. Her series of monumental quilt squares, titled “What Would Knitting Look Like Inserted in Steel,” feature shallow metal boxes inset with geometric knitted patterns. The intricately composed surfaces of these works envision new possibilities of cohabitation between feminist sensibilities and the mainstream world…"
