Winner of the 2025 Evan F. Lilly Memorial Art Competition, Indiana University Eskenazi School Master of Fine Arts student Ashley Lian will see her artwork “On the Mend” installed February 10 at the IU Health Bloomington Hospital, where it will be on display for the year. A collaboration between IU Health and the IU Eskenazi Museum of Art, the annual competition solicits submissions of art related to health and wellness from IU upperclassmen and graduate students, awarding the winner the exhibition opportunity and an honorarium.
Lian is in her first year of the three-year studio art graduate degree in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design, in the IU College of Arts and Sciences.
In interpreting the assignment, she considered that health and wellness is not just for the physical body, but also for the mind. Wellness, said the grad student focusing on the medium of fibers, means to build strength and resilience, both in body and mind, and to treat yourself as you would treat a friend going through an emotionally hard time.
Combining her lifelong love of creative writing with that of quilting, Lian’s “On the Mend” includes an original poem about experiencing heartbreak, sewn into upcycled bed sheets. The process of making “On the Mend,” she explained, facilitated healing from the heartbreak. Poetry helps her to understand her feelings, she said, while quilting, a time-consuming, repetitive technique, allows her to sit with and process her emotions.
A quilt, Lian said, is a soft object that keeps you warm and safe. When feeling down, wrapping yourself in a quilt can create a sense of comfort and refuge. “On the Mend” represents the time you give yourself to heal and the importance of acknowledging your feelings during a hard time, Lian said, and serves as a reminder to comfort yourself.
In addition to artworks based on the quilt form, Lian experiments with form and structure to transform textiles into sculptural pieces or installations, such as “A Choice Yet Made.” Lian also experiments with the presentation of her textiles to interrogate their identity as a functional art form. Instead of placing her works on furniture as quilts traditionally would be, she hangs them on the walls of her studio just like any other artwork.
Inspired by inquiry into historic costumes
In her piece “A Woman’s Work,” Lian uses textiles to start a conversation about gender roles and domestic labor. Referencing elements of three 20th-century women’s uniforms in the Eskenazi School’s Elizabeth Sage Historic Costume Collection, “A Woman’s Work” was created for “Inspired by Inquiry,” an exhibition of artworks by first-year M.F.A. students created in response to their research into collections across the university.
On view at University Collections at McCalla (525 E. 9th St.), “Inspired by Inquiry” opens with a reception Thursday, January 29 from 4 to 6 pm and gallery talks by four students starting at 4:30 pm. For more information about the exhibition and to register for the event, see this listing.
