Textile Art Gallery NYC presents Hiraeth, a solo exhibition by contemporary quilt-maker and collagist Jennifer Fons. The exhibition opened May 5, 2026 with a reception on May 16 from 3–5 pm and remains on view through June 27, 2026 at 529 West 20th Street in Chelsea.
Hiraeth takes its name from the untranslatable Welsh concept of a deep longing or homesickness tied to ancestral memory. Fons translates this emotional terrain into a vibrant textile-based visual language, working through her signature series of quilted and collaged figures that embody the feeling of searching for home across distance and time. The figures that populate the works often appear abstracted and isolated, yet positioned in relation to one another, expressing a sustained yearning for belonging that is at once deeply personal and universally recognizable.
The quilt as medium is central to the exhibition’s meaning. Historically associated with comfort, memory, and domesticity, the quilt becomes in Fons’ hands a vehicle for exploring inherited memory and the tension between rootedness and displacement. Her technique uses a rotary cutter to create shapes with the fluidity of a paintbrush, a 25-year practice rooted in a childhood fascination with color, shape, and line. The result is work that feels both handmade and painterly, intimate and expansive.
Hiraeth is a quietly powerful exhibition that uses one of craft’s most domestic forms to ask some of its most searching questions about where we come from and where we belong.
Exhibition Details
Show: Hiraeth
Artist: Jennifer Fons
Opening Reception: May 16, 2026 | 3–5 pm
On View: May 5 – June 27, 2026
Venue: Textile Art Gallery NYC | 529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 am–6 pm
Website: textileartnyc.com
