UPCOMING EXHIBITION

SCRAPS

AN EXHIBITION OF WORKS BY ABBIE PRESTON EDMONSON

On view February 6 - April 5, 2026

The Lanecia A. Rouse Gallery is pleased to announce Scraps, an exhibition of works by Houston-based artist Abbie Preston Edmonson, curated by Hailie Durrett.  

“Scraps by Abbie Preston Edmonson begins in fire, literal and otherwise. The exhibition gathers what remains after heat and pressure have done their work: ash and charcoal, discarded tissue and unspoken words, clay remnants, charred wallpaper. Born from grief, inheritance, and the deep Southern ache of being a woman taught to carry too much with a smile, the work became a practice of setting things down and telling the truth out loud.

Working across sculpture, drawing, and collection-based installation, Edmonson assembles a space where absence carries as much shape as presence. Charcoal and clay drawings compose a visual diary, continuing a childhood practice of measuring the desire for belonging and the contortions it requires. A wall dark as ash holds poetry, anchored by a handbuilt reliquary filled with what might otherwise be swept away, arranged with deliberate care. Ceramic vessels bear the evidence of flame and ash, their surfaces marred by exposure.

Edmonson's materials speak in the language of ritual. Each object carries the weight of what it contains and what it releases. Throughout the exhibition, ghosts of loved ones and versions of the artist herself linger in each object and shadow between.

Scraps speaks of an implicit refusal: to remain tethered to origin, even when stepping toward a self those origins never imagined. Fragments and cast-offs are gathered because the South taught us that even the things we don't talk about still shape us. Every decision here is a choosing and therefore, an un-choosing, leaving marks behind. Scraps keeps those marks visible, insisting that becoming is a series of reckonings formed by what we carry and what we finally allow ourselves to lay down.”

— Hailie Durrett, Guest Curator