Internalities, by Rachel Pernick & Teasha Luu

Opening reception for “Internalities,” an exhibition of quilts, fiber art, and sculpture by Rachel Pernick and Teasha Luu. The exhibit runs November 14, 2026–January 8, 2027. All ages.

These works, created by two medical students in the midst of their training, explore pathology, physiology, and what it means to be well and unwell. They also probe the emotional and psychological effects of medical training, which requires reckoning with morbidity and mortality while maintaining humanistic, compassionate care. It can be easy to lose sight of the patient in front of you, favoring the parts in lieu of the whole. The artists reflect on contradictions in their experiences of medical training, centering both patient and physician as critical players in the practice of medicine.

Teasha’s work embraces medicine’s dichotomies: beauty and burden, joy and exhaustion, healing and hurt. Through fiber art and sculpture, she uses familiar objects and forms to explore experiences that are often difficult to see. Medicine teaches us to look beneath the surface for symptoms and pathology, yet important parts of illness—such as grief, fear, and resilience—are often invisible. Some pieces are playful and lighthearted, while others reflect the weight of illness and the emotional toll of becoming a physician. Together, they explore caring for others while maintaining everyone’s humanity.

Rachel’s work focuses on the inner workings of the human body and the many ways things can go awry. Her early quilts reflect both her initial lack of knowledge about anatomy and physiology as she learned the material, and her sense of awe. The title “Internalities” explores the divide between external and internal: how we present publicly and what we endure privately, what may be happening inside that an outside observer cannot see, and the diagnostic work of determining what is happening within a patient.

Rachel Pernick is a medical student at the University of Utah. She has quilted since moving to Utah six years ago and has made quilts throughout medical school. She uses mostly secondhand fabrics, including hospital scrubs and gowns, bedsheets, and discarded clothing; many are hand-dyed. She makes quilts to make sense of what she learns in medical school and clinical training, where she encounters and imagines what is inside our bodies, where it is, and what can go wrong. She earned a BS in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan and also experiments with other fiber arts and printmaking. After medical school, she hopes to practice primary care.

Teasha Luu is a medical student and self-taught artist who works primarily in fiber art, sculpture, and mixed media. She enjoys transforming ordinary materials into something unexpected. Her interest in fiber arts grew during medical school, when creating became a way to step outside the structure and intensity of training. What began as a hobby became a form of self-expression. She incorporates medical imagery and experiences into work ranging from traditional fiber pieces to sculptural interpretations of medicine. She enjoys the contrast between soft materials such as yarn and fabric and the heavier subjects they represent. For Teasha, art is a space for experimentation and fun, where she can create freely.