April 21–24, 2026 @ Slocumb Galleries
East Tennessee State UniversityDepartment of Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries in partnership with Bravissima! Women Sponsoring the Arts, and support from ETSU SAIC, Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, and Tennessee Arts Commission present"The Deer Garden: Jenie Gao"at the Slocumb Galleries, on view until April 24.
"The Deer Garden"features print and installation work by Asian American artist Jenie Gao in her effort to reclaim narratives of heritage through transformation of material culture. The exhibition honors her Asian heritage and homage to her matrilineal relations as the“family’s knowledge keepers.”
In one of the installations, "Where Mountain Cats Live,"a multimedia assemblage, Gao stated that it “acknowledges the precarity that are often [heritage] build roots upon.”Through this work of table-based installation, prints, and accompanying artist’s books, Gao“collapses layers of global and local colonization, childhood memories, and familial narratives of home, displacement, and perseverance, embedded in individual objects”as it simultaneously investigates“material culture, as homage to the ‘imagination of the oppressed,’ and a love letter to her mother and extended communities who in the face of many uncertainties maintain a sense of home”while inviting viewers for innovative lenses to strengthen community bonds.
The Slocumb Galleries are located at Ernest C. Ball Hall, 232 Sherrod Drive, ETSU campus, Johnson City, Tennessee. Gallery hours are weekdays, Mondays throughFridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with extended hours during receptions and by appointments. For more information, schedule a visit or for handicapped accommodations, email Karlota Contreras-Koterbay vicontrera@etsu.edu.