CURRENT Exhibition
Gestures of Care
Chantal Lesley & Ana Treviño
Exhibition Dates: August 14th – September 12th, 2026
Opening Reception: August 14th 7-10pm
Artist talk: Sep 5th 2pm, moderated by Jai Fields
Open Canopy/ Closing Reception: September 11th 7pm-10pm
Image: left, Ana Treviño “To Have and To Hold”
right Chantal Lesley, "I See Flowers Everywhere"
Gestures of Care, Chantal Lesley & Ana Treviño
Exhibition Dates: August 14th – September 12th, 2026
Opening Reception: August 14th 7-10pm
Artist talk: Sep 5th 2pm, moderated by Jai Fields
Open Canopy/ Closing Reception: September 11th 7pm-10pm
Gestures of Care examines motherhood not as a fixed identity but as an evolving set of actions, relationships, and responsibilities. Bringing together photography, video, collage, textiles, and sculpture, the exhibition asks what constitutes motherhood and whether it can be understood beyond biological or societal definitions.
Working from distinct yet intersecting perspectives, Ana Treviño and Chantal Lesley explore these themes through lived experience and aspiration. One is grounded in the daily realities of raising a child; the other is rooted in the practices of care, longing, and possibility that surround maternal impulses, whether realized or not. Together, their work suggests that motherhood is an active, ongoing practice.
Treviño draws from her experience as a mother, interrogating the historical, cultural, and media narratives that have shaped maternal identity while revealing its complexities, contradictions, and emotional terrain. Seeking other maternal perspectives is at the heart of Treviño’s investigation of motherhood. Rather than focusing solely on those who have already birthed their children, Treviño puts the lens on expecting mothers. Some are having their second child, others are having their first. Treviño also reflects deeply on the concept of holding. She wants mothers, who often do the holding, to feel held. Working with her son’s clothing, she repurposes textile to create a macramé hammock, reflecting on the future when someday her child will be the one holding her. The body is also at the center of Treviño’s work. Having extensively researched Mesoamerican fertility figures, she draws from her own ancestral connection to Olmec and Aztec civilizations. Using 3D scanning technology, Treviño scanned her own body and made contemporary fertility figures. Drawing connections to past examples of what fertility looked like, she considers how her own body serves as an image of fertility, beauty, and social role.
Lesley investigates the maternal through lived acts of care, asking how nurturing, attachment, and responsibility shape identity even when motherhood remains imagined, uncertain, or out of reach. Drawing on experiences of tending to siblings, an ailing parent, her pet, and herself, her work considers how caregiving exists beyond parenthood, emerging through everyday gestures of attention, protection, and presence. Through photography, collage, and textiles, she examines how acts of nurture shape identity through memory, longing, and ritual. As part of her practice, Lesley collaborated with children ages four to nine, inviting them to photograph whatever drew their attention and to draw flowers of their choosing. Their photographs become elements within her collages, while their drawings are translated into hand-sewn fabric compositions, foregrounding children's perspectives and embracing collaboration, trust, and shared authorship as gestures of care.
Across the exhibition, care emerges as the thread that binds these perspectives together, appearing as ritual, labor, protection, repair, grief, tenderness, and endurance. Rather than offering a singular definition of motherhood, Gestures of Care invites viewers to consider care as an intimate practice and cultural force, one expressed through acts of attention, reciprocity, and responsibility toward children, families, communities, and ourselves.
Chantal Lesley (she/her) is an Austin-based artist and first-generation American from the Rio Grande Valley, born to Peruvian and German immigrants. Her work examines identity, memory, and belonging while increasingly exploring the intangible—dreams, the unconscious, and the retelling of autobiographical stories. Lesley earned a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Texas State University in 2021 and has exhibited across the U.S., at institutions such as the Houston Center for Photography, Craighead Green Gallery, and Touchstone Gallery. She has participated in residencies such as LATITUDE, Vermont Studio Center, kala, and Château d'Orquevaux.
Ana Treviño is an artist, filmmaker and educator based in Austin, TX. Her practice is centered on cultural narratives. She uses a feminist lens to think about the concept of borders, whether visible, invisible, or blurred. Her connection to the U.S./Mexico border deeply influences her work and the stories she engages with. The stories she connects with are oftentimes subjugated ones. Through video installation and performance, she aims to explore and recontextualize these stories. Her most recent work involves deconstructing and analyzing the mother figure in media, literature, and art. She has been invited to lecture for the Capstone Lecture Series in Eastern Washington University, led graduate workshops at the University of Texas at Austin, and worked with underrepresented youth in the greater Austin area. Her writing has been published in Gender/Sexuality/Italy, a peer reviewed journal focusing on gendered identities. Films she has collaborated in have screened at Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest. She received her MFA in Art and Technology from the University of Florida and a BS in Television and Film Production from Florida International University. She is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in Studio Art at Texas State University.
Gestures of Care
Chantal Lesley & Ana Treviño
Exhibition Dates: August 14th – September 12th, 2026
Opening Reception: August 14th 7-10pm
Artist talk: Sep 5th 2pm, moderated by Jai Fields
Open Canopy/ Closing Reception: September 11th 7pm-10pm
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12-6pm and by appointment
ICOSA Gallery
916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 2, #102
Austin, TX 78702
www.icosacollective.com