EXHIBITIONS / RECENT GROUP SHOWS 2021 - 2023

Distilled: Contemporary Abstraction
Curated by Amanda Knowles
North Seattle College Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
November 14, 2022 - January 13, 2023

In the art world the word abstraction is slippery in its meaning and the category is large. There are many connotations. It presumes many different visions and ways of working all pulled out of the representational world and distinct. For this exhibition we look toward work that takes a concept to its core with a clarified aspect. But even in the included pieces by these seven artists there are many ways of working. For some it might be a considered simplification, the concept distilled to its essential parts, whittled down. For some they submerge themselves in a place or ingest a researched idea distilling it to its essential parts, iterating and perhaps reiterating it after much time circling the mind. For all of the included artists what you are seeing is an offering of something of the repeated trace of the original idea. Whether simple or complex in its aspect each is made with a highly considered touch or gesture, honed. 

Carbon
Curated by Kascha Snavely
The Vestibule, Seattle, WA
2022

Burning and screaming, trees, regenerating mushrooms, plastic and concrete recycled into skulls and melting icons, sunburnt skin – all appear in this group exhibition. The work raises awareness of carbon footprints, emissions, and cycles through material, form, and content. The exhibition includes installation, sculpture, ceramic, photography, video, and painting.

HOWL
Curated by Lele Barnett and Amanda Manitach with Forest For The Trees
RailSpur, Seattle, WA
2022

Howl is a survey of female-identifying and non-binary artists who work in large-scale material and voice. From hanging gardens to tensile textile walls, ephemeral text tracings to punk-poetic shout-outs, the exhibit encompasses a range of material expressions as elegant as they are aggressive, spanning the softly ecstatic to blunt-force unapologetic. 

Exhibited works include installations from both regional and national artists, and features reproductions of vital and viral images produced by the organization Shout Your Abortion. Across the works in this exhibit is a through-line where technical precision meets poetic expression, an offering of violent beauty that calls for response. 

The bittersweet march towards collective healing, progress, health, and survival lands on the ever-bending backs of these beasts of perpetual burden and power. May women rule the world.

Both transparent and solid, Spinning Lines, is a site-specific string installation addressing the circular nature of life while toeing the line between drawing and sculpture. Why is it that we make the same choices and walk the same paths? Sometimes we get stuck and forget we have a choice. The truth comes out in the saying "We are creatures of habit." The seemingly simplistic aesthetic evokes a personal search for each viewer leading toward introspection and our human tendency to repeat ourselves.

Ruts of Repetition (RoR) is a durational performance about the paths we form in our daily lives and how easily we form these patterns and get stuck in them. It takes three repetitions to make a habit but a life time to break one. Performed alongside Prince’s installation, Spinning Lines, RoR will grow and evolve over the four day exhibition.

For HOWL Megan Prince created a site-specific multidisciplinary work. This work includes her installation, Spinning Lines, which she created with a community of non-binary and female-identifying people and allies. Prince also performed the corresponding durational performance, RoR, multiple times daily. Additionally, Amy Funbuttons joined Prince for the first day of performances as well as the final RoR performance. All culminated in a final performance where Funbuttons and Prince we imersed in the installation for the last hour or until collapse. Visit the videos and performance page for more information on Spinning Lines (including process videos and live footage of the final performance).

Installation and performance views of Megan Prince’s Spinning Lines and Ruts of Repetition for Howl with Forest For the Trees at RailSpur, Seattle, WA 2022.

Interdependance
Jurored by George Rodriguez
The Kirkland Arts Center, Kirkland, WA
2021

 As we have spent more and more time in isolation we learn in depth about the people, structures, institutions and environments that are vital for our continued growth. There are new connections forged and different norms of navigating social interactions. We adjust to a changing world even when the change seems to happen rapidly.

I wanted to give artists an opportunity to express this sudden shift. To me, that can be a deeper introspective look at routines that have been disrupted. It can be a new connection with nature that flourished because we found time to visit the peonies every day. It can be the video chats with friends that transformed into karaoke sessions or the memories and hopes of gathering with strangers once again as we move out of the fog and into a gallery.

The work in this exhibition points to different aspects of interdependence. From figures gathering in a large crowd, an intimate procession, or two people unable to touch because of a thin barrier, it is apparent that connections are present. Even while looking towards a non-descript window, we get a glimpse of color, nature, and care. As stones support each other and scraps of fabric create a tight weave, we are all stronger together. We rely on each other and our surroundings.