Embodied: Intersectional Experiences of Womanhood
March 5 – April 3, 2025
Curated by Jamie Gerhold and Jillian Abir MacMacster
The City of Frederick is pleased to announce the opening of Embodied: Intersectional Experiences of Womanhood, a group exhibition of women-identifying artists with significant ties to Frederick. The exhibition, on view at City Hall through April 3, features artists whose work explores themes of how artists interpret their personal relationship to womanhood, societal projections of womanhood, gender and identity exploration and more. Embodied features work in a variety of media including textile, photography, oil on canvas, and mixed media by artists Julia Schrecengost, Kristin Arzt, Dr. Margaret Dowell, Melissa Miley, Nicole Fox Abuhamada, Sofia Parkins, and co-curators, Jamie Gerhold and Jillian Abir MacMaster.
The exhibition is part of the City of Frederick’s Office of the Mayor Art in City Hall program. The program presents rotating exhibitions throughout the year, highlighting artists through partnerships with local arts and culture organizations, non-profits, schools, libraries, and community groups.
Please join us for a reception with the artists on Friday, March 28th from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at City Hall, 101 N Court Street. Light refreshments will be served. Please email LJadallah@CityofFrederickMD.gov with questions.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Jamie Gerhold
Jamie is a multifaceted artist, muralist and arts educator who is passionate about serving her community and bringing people together through creative experiences. Jamie received her BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design with a focus on portraiture and mixed media. She infuses her work with symbolic imagery and layered storytelling, often using materials with special significance collected on trips, hikes, from old bookstores, or passed down from family members. Originally from Frederick, Jamie now works for the city as an Arts Program Coordinator and an arts instructor teaching both privately and with The Delaplaine Visual Arts Center and City of Frederick Parks and Recreation Department.
Jillian Abir MacMaster
Jillian Abir MacMaster (b. 1995, she/her) is a Palestinian-American photographic artist from Frederick, Maryland. She holds a BFA in photography from Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
An artist statement is also available for select work featured in the show, if provided by the artist.
Julia Schrecengost
Julia Schrecengost has been living in Frederick since 2020 and is a former member of NOMA Gallery. Julia’s work combines printmaking processes and hand-spun yarn in order to explore the relationship between internal processes of my own body and organic processes in constant motion around me. Physical objects such as netting, branches, and leaves reference connective tissue and joints, the parts of my body that do not function normally due to a joint disorder and arthritis. Pain becomes something evocative of universal experiences, inviting the viewer to feel, whether or not that feeling is comfortable.
Kristin Arzt
Kristin Arzt is a natural dyer, educator, gardener, and designer with a passion for exploring the intersection of textiles, plants and sustainability. As a new mom, Kristin is delving into themes of identity throughout her work. Originally from Frederick, she leads workshops and retreats throughout the county, with the motivation to make the study of natural dyes accessible to all.
Dr. Margaret Dowell
Margaret Dowell’s personal history includes both laboring in the tobacco fields of Southern Maryland (Planting, cutting, stripping 609) and High Academia (BA, MFA, PhD). An Art Educator by career, she most recently taught for the College of Southern Maryland – earlier in her career she taught for the Frederick Public School System. A visual artist by fate, she began in her youth creating installations (shown mainly in Washington DC Universities and Art Centers), and then moved into painting mostly social commentary works in oils. These works, addressing the likes of gender, violence, mental health, and addiction, were shown for decades in both solo and group exhibitions (invitational, juried, non-juried) – mostly in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Today she paints representational oils about heritage. She is the co-editor of the award-winning book Addiction and Art (Johns Hopkins University Press) which received much attention including a Highly Commended Award from the British Medical Society. Her most recent solo exhibition, Dowell Farm, was on display at the Delaplaine Arts Center in December 2024.
Melissa Miley
Melissa Miley is an oil painter based out of Frederick, MD, that focuses mainly on realism. She’s been painting for about six years and finds inspiration in everyday life from unique textiles, wildfire, and people. She is excited to continue her education in painting techniques and color theory knowledge.
Nicole Fox Abuhamada
Nicole Abuhamada is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores surrealistic narratives and feminist themes. She has shown at the American Visionary Art Museum’s Bazaart and held a solo show, Notional Ekphrasis. As the Executive Director of the Washington County Arts Council, she champions the transformative power of the arts. Her poetry and illustrations have been published in Unbound Morpheum, Sapere Magazine, and Pen in Hand.
Sofia Parkins
Sofia Parkins is a freelance photographer, writer and graphic designer based in Frederick.