Cheryl Pope stands up after blows in the boxing ring and in her life. As a die-hard artist, connector, educator, and an inspirator to Chicago youth, she understands what it’s like to have been shaken. Whether it’s romance-, race-, gender-, or class-based, her multimedia work stabs at power, while keenly recognizing its historically referenced politics. In her current work, Pope recreates deeply personal scenarios with needle-punched wool roving on cashmere, cinematically composing the silent complexities of beauty with tragedy. Winding lines and vibrating colored patterns in her figurative tapestries oscillate between imagery of love and loss. Her current solo show, No Place Better Than the Body, presents a titillating array of static strip-club imagery—from memory. She recalls voyeurism and a female gaze of her own. Yet, the depth of intimacy is as fleeting as a fragrance. The eroticism need not delve inside; the surface is too hot.
