THE INFINITE MIRAGE OF RAPTURE

Jaina Cipriano

"These works communicate the complex grief of growing up as a woman in a culture dedicated to stifling authentic emotion and communication. This is especially precarious for those of us who fear abandonment, as it is easy, in our search for love and connection, to get caught in a web of codependency without any means of emotional salvation.

I am interested in creating a space where people with similar trauma can feel witnessed by others as the first step to liberation from this cycle of silence, the façade of isolation. My pieces depict cut-off subjects struggling to escape liminal spaces. When they realize no one is coming to save them, they seek the strength to save themselves."

DEGLASSIFICATION

Lindsy Marshall & Siena Hancock

Glass is a unique material. As a vitreous substance, its amorphous molecular state causes it to be given a completely separate classification from a solid, liquid, or gas. Artists Lindsy Marshall and Siena Hancock work with this distinctive material in ways that defy everyday expectations. Rather than creating a clear pristine form of glass, Hancock and Marshall both create artworks that toe the line of the material’s limits. Holding the roles of pseudo alchemists, chemists, and enchanters- their works are conglomerated from various methods and processes of glassmaking as well as the combination of different glass types and oxides.

EBENDA

Hartmut Austen

Ebenda is the German word for “Ibidem”, Latin for “Just there” or “At the very same place”. I use the title for its shortness and literal playfulness – however it also relates to an idea of place, presence and absence, as well as, a reference to our personal and shared experiences of the year 2020. With each of my works, I attempt to strike a balance between personal reflection on political and social currents, while simultaneously commenting on the artistic medium itself.

Thanks to Mark Cooper, Tatiana Flis, Haynes Riley, Fabio Fernández and Joachim Homann for input with this show.

Tacit Facet: Small and Mighty

Curated by Camilo Alvarez, the show stays true to Alvarez’s mission to explore the diversity of cultures and voices that continually shape contemporary art and ideas today. Featuring a mix of local and internationally acclaimed artists from New York to California and abroad, the group show explores themes of race, gender, class, and cultural identity. Tacit facet includes work by Radcliffe Bailey, Gloretta Baynes, Iona Rozeal Brown, Daniel Callahan, Don Claude, Ashley Doggett, Karen Eutemey, Marlon Forrester, Robert Freeman, Deborah Grant, Stephen Hamilton, Sedrick Huckaby, Lavaughan Jenkins, Anukriti Kaushik, Khalid Kodi, Peter Wayne Lewis, Steve Locke, Lester Merriweather, Kayode Ojo, Cierra Michele Peters, Lamar Peterson, Jordan Seaberry, Malick Sidibe, Lorna Simpson, Susie Smith, Henry Taylor, Chanel Thervil, Thukral & Tagra, Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson, and Brittney Leeanne Williams. 

There is a staggering breadth of both thematic and artistic approaches represented within this show. Some artists tap into historical frameworks, as found in Stephen Hamilton’s multi-media works on paper inspired by pre-colonial African art history. Other artists draw from more contemporary spaces, such as Iona Rozeal Brown, whose large-scale, acrylic paintings reflect Japanese printmaking and the modern world of hip-hop.

The show highlights rising stars in the art world, while also redefining the work of established artists through Lorna Simpson’s prolific photographs and Carrie Mae Weems’ multi-media work. Bridging current and established, modern and ancient, historical and our contemporary moment, tacit facet…small & mighty pushes viewers to expand understandings of race, culture, and identity not as a monolithic or binary experience but as richly multifaceted, multidimensional, and ever-changing.