Fleisher recently completed a public art commission for the City of San Antonio’s Tricentennial year. It was sited for Travis Park, in downtown San Antonio, and consisted of nine sculptures and one large informational mural/map. The main concept linked the history of the park as both part of the original Alamo property, and later, Samuel Maverick’s personal peach orchard, to the 1918 US peach pit collection for gas masks during WWI.
The Girl Scouts also feature in a prominent role, as they had recently organized as a formal group. In addition to raising homing pigeons and other projects during the war, collecting peach pits was their first large-scale community effort. At the end of their collection, the three girls who collected the most pits came to DC and were declared “Peach Pit Champions.”
For additional information on this project, including historical photos, visit this link: https://emilyfleisher.net/Travis-Park-First-Fruits
Fleisher is currently developing a body of drawings based off of various historical needleworks that coalesce into a broader narrative of American women up until 1920. These works will mainly be an expansive body of layered, translucent drawings on mylar. In addition to needlework patterns and motifs, mundane anecdotes of daily routine will be interwoven throughout the layers. The drawings have a curious, ghostly presence due to the foggy nature of the mylar. Some areas are hazy, as a reflection of viewing history, while other portions stand out as crisp and in focus.
As next year will be the 100th year anniversary of woman’s suffrage, the nature of this series feel timely as an analysis of women's work and visibility in public space.
Emily Fleisher received her MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design, and her BFA in Sculpture from Syracuse University. Recent solo exhibitions include Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; Polyglot Gallery, San Antonio, TX; Box 13 Artspace, Houston, TX; and Women and Their Work, Austin, TX. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at Rutgers University Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; and Stay Gold Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Fleisher is originally from New York, and currently lives with her family in San Antonio, TX
