res plumata opens Body of Work at Koneksi Gallery exploring chronic illness

At Koneksi Co‑Creative Gallery in Clinton, the exhibition Body of Work by Whidbey artist res plumata opened March 4 and runs through March 30, foregrounding lived experience with chronic illness, invisible disability and medical trauma. The artist uses the all‑lowercase moniker “res plumata” for safety and uses they/them pronouns; plumata framed the show as “a conversation around the impact of chronic illness, invisible disability and medical trauma, and how it affects the mind, body and spirit.”

The exhibit comprises approximately 10 to 15 mixed media pieces, each paired with a poem, and prints with accompanying text will be available for purchase. Media on view include acrylic painting, pen and ink illustration, watercolor, three‑dimensional papier‑mâché, plaster sculpture and audiovisual multimedia, and the original exhibition plan also incorporates performance and community conversation elements.

Several works come from what plumata calls “the concussion series.” That subset includes “a watercolor of the distorted, fish‑eye image they saw upon regaining consciousness” and “a pen‑and‑ink rendering of the actual site months later,” both of which the artist created after returning home from the hospital. “The very first thing that I did when I got home from the hospital was, I need to know that I can still make art. And so my partner set me up, Frida-Kahlo-style on the couch with all of my things and I created a series that I’m calling the concussion series,” plumata said.

Plumata’s work and process were reshaped by an October “freak accident” that resulted in a traumatic brain injury and left them permanently disabled, with impaired close‑up vision and weakened mobility. “Already living with a chronic illness, a few months after their work was accepted into the gallery, plumata’s life changed,” the artist said, and they described the creative effort that followed as a way to reorient in a changed body: “There’s a lot of times where I’ll be working and my hands are just not doing what they’re supposed to. My eyes aren’t doing what they’re supposed to. And so I have to stop, but then that’s also part of the art, that frustration,” plumata said.

The show’s physical centerpiece is “a winged papier‑mâché lamp molded from printed medical imagery.” The lamp functions as both object and metaphor for recovery; “As they constructed it, plumata said, they also learned to support their own body’s weight again and fill it with light.” That reconstruction theme links the concussion series, the mixed media sculptures and the poems paired with each piece.

Koneksi Co‑Creative Gallery is located at 4777 Commercial Street #A9 in Clinton and is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the gallery is closed Thursday and Sunday. Koneksi lists contact details as koneksigallery@gmail.com and (360) 323‑9531, and describes the space as a rotating exhibition venue that also hosts year‑round vendor retail, live music, workshops and community events. Visitors with health or accessibility concerns can request a semi‑private, masked shopping experience at the beginning of the day; the gallery notes a raised sidewalk step with two ramps approximately 20 feet from the front door, cement floors with an expansion joint creating a less than 1/2‑inch lip, and no public restroom with the employee bathroom not ADA compliant.

Body of Work remains on view at Koneksi through March 30, presenting plumata’s ongoing experience of chronic illness, invisible disability and medical trauma as mixed media objects, performance and community conversation.