Somewhere between skin and sky,
her body, a golden valley. 
Held, reunited, swallowed
in mother's milk. 
This chasm, my origins.
Where you are, I will someday be.
Birthed from you and 
swallowed by your absence, 
I lay on the earth to remember
the touch of your skin.

Rooted in found kinship, shared geography, and uncanny origins, Prairie Poetics (2023) is a two-person show featuring the work of Anne Skaug and Katie B. H. Wolff. Through concrete, fibers, photographs, and found objects, portals are created: memories embedded in cloth, a landscape transcending time, and every absence a presence.

 

This installation is a material reflection of the innumerable conversations between Skaug and Wolff contemplating experiences that meet and diverge. Each work exists within an unfolding archive of the topographies of grief, the incarnation of internal landscapes, and a longing to hold with tenderness the tension of one’s inheritance.

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Prairie Poetics has been exhibited at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Saint Xavier University Gallery (Chicago), The Dahl Arts Center (Rapid City), and will be on display in the spring of 2025 at Black Hills State University (Spearfish, SD).