Twisting Wool into Thread: Works by Marcy Chevali

Kean University Galleries and Collections is pleased to announce a solo exhibition in the Karl and Helen Burger Gallery, Twisting Wool into Thread: Works by Marcy Chevali, on view September 8, 2026 through December 4, 2026. The opening reception for the artist will be held on Wednesday, October 14 from 5:30 – 7:30 P.M. in the Karl and Helen Burger Gallery. The Karl and Helen Burger Gallery, in the Maxine and Jack Lane Center for Academic Success, is open to the public Monday through Friday, 10:00 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. 

In Marcy Chevali’s work, glass expands and contracts. Thin and transparent borosilicate glass rods are bent into shape with a torch and adjoined to form an irregular grid. These grids appear to swell, as if created around an invisible, dimensional form. Chevali refers to the structures she makes out of glass, metal, and sometimes mohair as “nets.” No matter the material, the treatment is similar; wire and mohair are likewise knotted or interlaced. Knotted mohair stiffens and becomes suspended in or imprinted on handmade abaca paper. Undulating wire nets anchor to the wall like spider webs or fishing trawls. Woolen veils, the length of the human body, trail from suspended ovoid vessels, pulled into funnel shapes under the force of gravity. 

Chevali’s work develops slowly and methodically, calling to mind the story of Penelope’s web in Margaret Atwood’s novella The Penelopiad, from which the title of this exhibition is borrowed. According to Atwood’s reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope must weave a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, “twisting wool into thread.”  Each natural fiber Chevali manipulates represents a calculated decision to fix material in place, allow it to move freely and respond to the environment, or remove it altogether. 

Marcy Chevali lives and works in New York City and received her MFA from Maine College of Art and her BFA from the Ohio State University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Queens Museum of Art, Noyes Museum, Aicon Gallery, AIR Gallery, and Gallery Aferro, and with organizations such as South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, ABC No Rio, and Project for Empty Space. Chevali has participated in residencies at the Edward Albee Foundation, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Urban Glass, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Monson Arts, and Willapa Bay AiR. She is a recipient of grants from the Queens Council of the Arts and FST Studio Projects.