Kimmy Noonen grew up as an only child in a divorced household, moving between schools and dealing with anxiety long before she had the words to explain what she was feeling.
Today, the Chicago artist is using those experiences, along with her family history, motherhood and nearly 11 years of therapy, to create artwork that asks people to look more closely at the things they carry with them.
Noonen’s work is featured in “Working Memory,” an exhibit at the Saint Xavier University Gallery that opened Sept. 30 and runs through Oct. 24. The exhibit features pieces created from 2021 to 2026 and explores mental health, emotional healing, memory and generational trauma.
The artist presentation and opening reception took place Sept. 30 at the SXU Gallery, giving visitors an opportunity to meet Noonen and experience the work behind a subject she has spent years exploring privately.
“This is the first time I’ve explicitly shown a collection of my work on this topic even though it’s been a big part of my life and work for many years,” Noonen said.
The decision to bring those subjects into the gallery is connected to a personal journey that began nearly 11 years ago when Noonen started therapy for her own well-being.
“I started therapy almost 11 years ago for my own wellbeing, never imagining that the labor I would do in that arena would reform my entire life,” she said.
That work has changed the way Noonen thinks about memory, family and the experiences that can be passed from one generation to the next.
She wants “Working Memory” to open the door for conversations about subjects that can be difficult to discuss, particularly when people feel they are carrying them alone.
“In a time when the invisible burdens of our inner worlds feel so overwhelming and undersupported, I want to inspire creative conversations about the vulnerability, courage, and complexity that comes with transformation,” Noonen said.
The title itself reflects the questions Noonen has spent years exploring.
“Working memory” is a neuroscience term describing the part of the brain involved in holding and processing information in the present. Noonen also sees the phrase as a description of the work people do when they confront their past and try to understand how it continues to shape their lives.
“I choose titles that can illuminate multiple ideas at one time, like a play on words,” she said.
Noonen said she is interested in what happens when people become more conscious of the memories they carry and the ways those memories influence their fears, identities and values.
“By thinking about these different but overlapping meanings, I wonder what it might look like to work out our memories and become conscious of the way they’re working for us,” she said.
For Noonen, that exploration began long before she became a professional artist.
She remembers moving between schools as a child and experiencing anxiety without having the language to describe it.
Both of her parents encouraged her interest in art and expressed their own creativity in different ways. But it was not until her freshman year of college that Noonen began to understand that art could become more than an interest.
She took an introductory art class and immediately felt like she had found where she belonged.
“Despite getting good grades in most subjects, felt like I had found my home,” she said.
As a first-generation college student, however, she said she did not even know how to explain that feeling to her family.
Noonen eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Mount Vernon Nazarene University in central Ohio and later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Chicago.
Her education taught her new techniques and introduced her to concepts she had never encountered before. But it took much longer to understand why she wanted to make art.
“I love art because it’s big enough to hold the scope of it all, leaving room for more, while connecting us to each other in the process,” she said.
That idea of art as a place big enough to hold complicated parts of a person’s life is at the heart of “Working Memory.”
Although Noonen considers herself a painter, the exhibit includes much more than paint and canvas. Her work incorporates acrylic, graphite and spray paint, along with textiles from her late grandmother’s sewing collection, prescription pill bottles, plastic safety fencing, metal mesh and photographic prints.
The materials connect the personal and everyday objects in people’s lives with larger questions about memory, healing and family.
“I love to explore the capacity of materials; the fabrics that touch our skin, the objects that fill up our homes and landfills, the colors that give shape to our memories,” Noonen said. “All materials have potential for storytelling and bridge building, using the small and broken things to create a substantial and lively interactive experience.”
Her late grandmother’s textiles are particularly meaningful because they bring an element of family history into a body of work dealing with what people inherit, both physically and emotionally.
Noonen also sees her experience as a mother as an important part of understanding her identity.
As she moved through adulthood, she began examining how her upbringing, education and family history had shaped the person she had become.
She said becoming a mother gave her the time and urgency to look at those pieces of her life more honestly.
It also helped her understand that she did not have to separate her background from the artist she had become.
“My blue-collar upbringing contributes to the kind of physical, interactive work I make and that I want art to be accessible to people from all walks of life,” Noonen said.
That accessibility is important to Noonen because she does not believe art should require people to have a particular education or background to find meaning in it.
“Art is the way humans describe and celebrate what it means to be human; the past, present and future of the whole ordeal,” she said.
One of the most interactive works in the exhibit is “Unknotted,” which gives visitors an opportunity to physically participate in the process of unraveling a complicated web of fabric strips.
The work is a metaphor for the long process of confronting generational trauma.
Noonen hopes the physical act of untying the material will give visitors a different way to think about the work they do to understand themselves and their families.
“The weight of invisible burdens can feel so heavy and disorienting, but with the right tools, muscles and community, the things we carry can also be incredibly beautiful,” she said.
Rather than asking viewers to simply stand back and observe, Noonen wants them to become part of the work.
“I hope this somatic practice will stay with the people who participate, transferring art appreciation from a mental exercise to a bodily collaboration,” she said.
That openness is also why Noonen welcomed the opportunity to show “Working Memory” at a university.
She hopes students will question the work, bring their own experiences to it and continue thinking about the ideas long after they leave the gallery.
“I’m hopeful that the conversations and questions Saint Xavier students have around my artwork will stay with them and influence the kind of leaders they will become after launching from this institution,” she said.
For Noonen, the exhibit is not an attempt to present a finished answer to the questions she has spent years exploring. Instead, it is part of the ongoing work of understanding herself.
She describes art as a place where all of those parts of her life can exist together: the child who struggled with anxiety, the daughter raised in a divorced household, the first-generation college student, the mother, the artist and the person who continues to work through her own memories.
“It’s big enough for the part of me that want to research and learn new ideas, the part that needs to play because failure is terrifying, the part that believes my value comes from what I create, and the part that hopes I’m worth more than the best I could ever accomplish,” Noonen said.
“Working Memory” remains on display at the Saint Xavier University Gallery through Oct. 24.
Noonen lives on Chicago’s Northwest Side in Portage Park. She is completing a two-year residency with Artists in Public Schools, working with students at Steinmetz College Prep, and will show work at other Chicago locations, including Hairpin Arts Center in Logan Square and SkyArt in Garfield Park.
She also hosts the “Kimmy Not Kim Podcast,” available on streaming platforms, and shares her work through her website and social media.
