Abby Bill

SAIC SHOWS 2023 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Graduates

SAIC SHOWS 2023 GRADUATE EXHIBITIONS

Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Degree

Abby Bill is a watercolorist and ceramicist based out of South Bend, Indiana. She has been a high school art educator for the past 12 years where she continues to teach drawing and painting. Her current body of work is centered around the balancing of their hormones that people face, observed through the lens of the bathroom mirror. Hormonal treatments can often be an isolating experience and this project brings people’s shared experiences together while advocating for access to gender affirming care, safe abortions, and equitable health autonomy. Abby is also interested in painting the growth and cyclical change of plants; documenting life during the most precious and devastating stages of being.

For Body and Blood, Watercolor, silver leaf, blackout paint, 16 x 20 In.

I consume a medication, used to treat a chronic illness, that the Catholic Church condones. My new scripture is my prescription and warnings pamphlet that I follow closer than I ever could follow the Bible. My evening prayer is a sitcom from my childhood that lulls me to sleep, ready to begin anew. Silver represents the modernity we have the privilege to exist within. It represents the lining of pill packets and syringe needles we use to take ownership over our hormones.

Garden of Diseases, Porcelain ovaries, mother of thousand plants, bathroom sink

Over forty thrown porcelain vessels to represent diseased, unfertilized eggs. Even with the chronic pain, the diseased person can grow and thrive if given proper medical treatment. Just as these plants can survive in a dark basement with only artificial light and prescribed waterings. They act as a meditative practice for me, I water them once a week and rotate them to the best light. Prune what is decaying to let new growths take over. The ovaries in the sink basin are seeking the healing waters that we were promised long ago by our foremothers.

Repeat the Cycle, Watercolor, silver leaf, blackout paint, 16 x 24 In.

These are varying self-portraits in different stages of the menstrual cycle. I am only able to have a synthetic period, a period that is brought on by taking a form of birth control. This is followed by depression, heavy bleeding, weight gain, hair loss, acne, and facial hair. As I document myself experiencing these physical and emotional changes, I also document my house plants from life. In completing these botanical studies, I allow myself to accept the changes that I am going through.

Sacred Separate Spaces, Watercolor, silver leaf, blackout paint, 28 panels of 8 x 10 In.

Twelve people going through varying ranges of hormonal issues contacted me and sent me photographs they took of themselves in their own bathroom. We shared stories about loss, change, and joy surrounding our hormones. The loneliness we all felt when we were isolated during this pandemic drove us all to seek this connection.

Hope After a Blood Moon, Watercolor, 16 x 24 In.

Self-portrait of the artist in wedding dress with pearls looking up at the phases of the moon. Inside of each moon, is a fetus growing and decaying representing a miscarrage.

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