Through her drawn, screen printed, and stuffed fabric installations, Kay Healy investigates themes of home, memory, displacement, and loss. The exhibition will feature two life-size installations: Coming Home, and Lost and Found ; along with a number of new works. Coming Home includes handmade furniture objects based on Philadelphians’ descriptions of their childhood homes. Lost and Found is based on stories of lost objects from interviews with over 40 individuals from the Philadelphia area. By working with the memories of other people, Healy creates a physical representation of collective recollections, while investigating how a variety of people – who differ in gender, age, race, neighborhood, sexual identity, income, and education – all relate to the objects that populate their memories. She is interested in how objects can embody vivid memories of people, events, and periods of someone’s life.

An artist and educator, Healy earned an MFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, in Book Arts and Printmaking. She recently completed a 1,000-square-foot printed fiber installation for the Central Library of Philadelphia, a project supported by the Independence Foundation’s Fellowship in the Arts. Her installation Coming Home was displayed in the Philadelphia International Airport; she was named a West Collects winner; she was a Fellow in the Center for Emerging Visual Artists’ Career Development Program; she was a recipient of the Leeway Art and Social Change grant; and she received the New Courtland Fellowship, which supported a teaching-artist project with senior citizens in Germantown. Originally from Staten Island, NY, she currently lives and works in Philadelphia.