MARCH 1 – APRIL 26, 2023

Opening Reception with the Artist
Wednesday, March 1, 5:30–7:30PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of La Isla Del Tigre, a solo exhibition by artist Jackie Milad.   The gallery will host a public reception with the artist on March 8th  from 5:30 – 7:30 PM.  This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition with SOCO Gallery.

La Isla Del Tigre, presents twelve new multimedia works exploring the layering of transcultural history in Central American and Middle Eastern architecture and iconography. Milad links a universal topic of cultural layering and documentation with her own multicultural identity by blending what appears to be disparate imagery, icons, and language (graffiti, rap lyrics, popular slang, etc). These layered compositions mimic not only her own mixed Honduran-Egyptian-American upbringing, but also symbolize the way cultures are recorded and monumentalized in remaining fragments over time. By obfuscating the meaning of her textiles, Milad prevents a single reading of the work and embraces the complexity of the piece and its analogy to global history.

The title of the exhibition, La Isla Del Tigre, references El Tigre (Tiger Island), the Honduran volcanic island where Milad’s mother is from. The artist has been making a series of work dedicated to this location as it relates to her heritage. The two large-scale paintings in the exhibition include circular forms and the idea of an explosion, much like her last body of work “A Planet Breaks Open.” 

The artist explores a vibrant palette in these new works - bright blues, pinks and yellow - which are in reference to her maternal grandmother’s kitchen. Milad’s artistic practice is motivated by a need to record and tell parts of her own story. She excavates her own earlier artworks and splices them into new pieces, constantly questioning the puzzle pieces of her past into an account of her presence in Baltimore today. In a purposefully confusing and chaotic manner, artworks that were once static and stored away become repurposed and responsive in dynamic compositions.

Jackie Milad (American)

Jackie Milad is a Baltimore City-based artist featured in group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Select exhibitions include: SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; C.Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD; Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, NC; Grizzly Grizzly,  Philadelphia, PA; Langer Over Dickie, Chicago, IL; Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD; Arthur Ross Gallery University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Luis De Juis, Los Angeles, CA, Museo de Arte de Mazatlan, Mazatlan, MX; and DiFOCUR de Sinaloa Sala de Arte Joven Galleria, Culiacan, MX. 

Milad is a multi-year recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from Maryland State Arts Council. In 2019, she was named a Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalist and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby Grantee and in 2022 she was awarded the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Artist Travel Prize for research at the British Museum in London, England. Milad was commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2022 to create an installation of new work in response to Fred Wilson’s Artemis/Bast (1992). The exhibition will be presented at the BMA from April 26, 2023 - March 17, 2024. 

Milad’s work is in the following public collections: Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Library, The Academy Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, GLB Memorial Foundation Collection, Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, Pizzuti Collection and Meta (Facebook) Open Art Program. 

Milad received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, MA, and her MFA from Towson University, MD. Milad serves as faculty member in both the Curatorial Practice and Studio Arts Low-Residency Graduate programs, at Maryland Institute College of Art. The artist was an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC in 2021, the 2022 artist-in-residence at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD and Interlude Artist Residency, Livingston, NY (forthcoming May 2023).