The Epsten Gallery for the Arts at Village Shalom is hosting “Gerry Trilling: A Celebration of Art,” an exhibition celebrating the life and work of artist Gerry Trilling (z”l) (Jan. 22, 1945 – Oct. 27, 2024).
Through objects both ordinary and symbolic, Trilling’s art was made to transform material culture into a powerful meditation on Jewish identity, memory, assimilation and belonging. Having opened on Jan. 29, the exhibition will run until March 1.
Trilling grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, in a close-knit community of immigrants.. Her parents fled Vienna, Austria, to escape the Holocaust, settling in a neighborhood shaped by Jewish refugees from across Europe. This environment — rich with tradition, shared experience and the textures of everyday life — became the foundation of her artistic voice. In Trilling’s work, domestic objects are intended to be vessels of history, emotion and generational memory.
“For me, identity and belonging were linked to home environment and material culture,” Trilling once said.
Family traditions, foods and customs anchored her early life, while the gradual acquisition of “American treasures” marked the process of assimilation. She often recalled a dark green boucle sofa from her childhood — its scratchy texture, twisted loops and shadows cast in the living room light — as emblematic of this transition. Over time, as families moved to new neighborhoods and older furnishings were replaced, these objects became quiet markers of progress, loss and change. A new sofa, Trilling said, signaled where a family had landed along the refugee success spectrum.
This sensitivity to material culture runs throughout Trilling’s body of work. Her art invites viewers to consider their own relationships with familiar objects and to reflect on how memory is carried through touch, texture and form. As parents age, pass away or slip into dementia, Trilling found solace in revisiting these sensory memories as an impulse that resonates strongly across generations.
Trilling received her BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute and went on to exhibit widely in both local and national venues. Her solo exhibitions included Studios Inc. and Habitat Contemporary Gallery in Kansas City; the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri; and the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts at the Florida Institute of Technology. Her work is held in numerous public and corporate collections, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and the Loews Hotel, among many others.
Her distinguished career was marked by significant honors, including a three-year studio residency at Studios Inc., an Inspiration Grant from ArtsKC, a Kansas Arts Commission Mini Fellowship and selection for the Kansas City Collection. She also participated in a Creative Capital–sponsored professional development workshop and was featured in “Ley Lines,” an interdisciplinary exchange between writers and artists.
The Epsten Gallery exhibition offers the Jewish community and the broader public an opportunity to encounter Trilling’s work in a setting that underscores its themes of Jewish heritage, legacy and lived experience.
“Gerry Trilling: A Celebration of Art” is supported by the Polsky Family Supporting Foundation and The Epsten Gallery.
The Epsten Gallery (5500 West 123rd Street, Overland Park, KS 66209) is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. More information is available at villageshalom.org/events.
