KELLY TAPÌA-CHUNING

Kelly Tapìa-Chuning (b. 1997) is an interdisciplinary Chicana artist from southern Utah currently based in Detroit, MI. She received a BFA in Studio Arts from Southern Utah University. Tapìa-Chuning utilizes research, textile deconstruction, and needle-felting to examine the power dynamics attached to racial identity/culture, gender, and language. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions, most notably with the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (forthcoming), GAVLAK (LA), The Border Project Space (NY), and solo exhibitions at Red Arrow Gallery (TN) and Harsh Collective (NY). Her work has been featured in The Nashvillian, create! Magazine, All SHE Makes, Artsin Square, and Friend of The Artist. She was an artist-in-residence at Stove Works in Chattanooga, TN and her work is in collections at Onna House in East Hampton, NY and the Southern Utah Museum of Art. Tapìa-Chuning is currently pursuing her MFA in the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she was awarded a Gilbert Fellowship. 

I consider my work autobiographical, shedding light on the power dynamics attached to gender, racial identity, and language. 

Utilizing the materials of my upbringing, I am interested in the divergence of memory with material and how that dictates our perceived notions of subjectivity.  The act of making has become a form of activism within my practice—one brought about through the mediums I use; felting, mark-making, and derogatory language. Through these vessels, I am reclaiming ownership of them and exploiting them, bringing back their agency for myself and the viewer. 

Vulnerability is at the forefront of my work, calling attention to intimate moments with family members, friends, strangers, and myself. The isolation of being without a sense of place—both racially and environmentally—has become a device of romance and indifference, finding its bearing in my psyche, blurring the lines of subjectivity.

I view my work as a middle ground for cultural intersection, with fiber and language in tandem with one another as vehicles of emergence. Together, both have paved the way for civilizations and industry, obtaining the possibility to represent articles of healing and change.

Self-Explanatory I, 2021. Needle felted Romney wool on foam board insulation.