Take Care, Sarah Hirneisen & Tammie Rubin
Exhibition Dates: August 15- September 13, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, August 15th 7-10pm
Third Thursday East Austin Arts District hours/ Artist Talk: August 21st 6-9pm (artist talk at 7:30pm)
Gallery Hours: Fridays & Saturdays 12-6 pm or by appointment
ICOSA Collective Gallery
916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 2, #102, Austin, TX 78702
www.icosacollective.com
Take Care
Take Care is a valediction, a proclamation, a wish, a blessing, a warning, and a curse. In this exhibition, Hirneisen and Rubin contemplate matters of care through the lens of labor. These perspectives of care range from the invisible domestic, economic, and societal work done by women, their acts of hospitality, gestures of ritual, and operations of bearing witness. Hirneisen and Rubin are process-based sculptors in which labor is essential for the exploration and execution of their work. Both artists engage in mold-making of the familiar and the transformation of objects through casting and material choices, reframing notions of the function and representational power of objects.
Hirneisen employs time-consuming, craft-based techniques such as brush-making, and basketry. These traditional processes are pushed beyond their conventional uses, with materials being explored in new and unexpected ways. Her practice elevates the physical act of creation while probing its connections to care, repetition, and resilience. Hirneisen’s own hands appear in the work—both figuratively and literally—as she constructs objects that function as symbolic tools or offerings. Many pieces serve as a farewell to her oldest child, who is preparing to leave home for college, and consider what is needed to thrive in today’s world. These works reimagine domestic life and challenge entrenched ideas about utility, gendered labor, and value, asking viewers to look again at what has long been overlooked.
Rubin is an artist who meticulously explores the inherent power of objects as signifiers, wishful contraptions, and mythic relics. Her work is a deep dive into the world of ritual and domestic objects, coded symbols, maps, Black citizenry, and migration. Rubin’s sculptures and installations consider narratives and spaces of metaphysical, physical, and spiritual escape. By using imagery and objects with which we are familiar, she prompts us to contemplate ideas of authenticity and inherited meanings, while also inviting new considerations that open dream-like spaces of unexpected associations and dislocations.
Take care is a meditation and commemoration of labor fully acknowledged, reciprocated, and freely given. The artists reframe care not as background noise, but as a central and complex force in both private and public life. A quote credited to James Baldwin goes, “Darling, I have no dream job. I do not dream of labor.” Hirneisen and Rubin agree; however, they do dream of care.