15th Annual National Juried Art Exhibition

Cohen Gallery at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts

June 2nd - August 6th, 2023

Reception: Friday, June 2nd from 6-8pm

Juror Statement:

Every time I visit the Goggleworks I am amazed by the size and scope of the place. Reading, Pennsylvania can boast one of the best all around, and thriving, art facilities in the country. It is no surprise that this show attracted so many talented artists, not only from the region but also from the entire state and beyond. When selecting the work, my only agenda was to choose well-developed pieces that demonstrate a commitment to making. That criteria allowed for a wide variety of mediums and styles, reflecting the current state of the art world where, finally, there is no particular prevailing dogma.

The large gallery space allowed, in many cases, the choice of two or more pieces to be selected from individual artists. With this luxury we are better able to experience their range and depth. When viewing the entries, it was evident that the ability to create space on a flat surface and a preoccupation with the human figure remains a timeless pursuit. Beyond that, there were abstractions, references to pop-culture, references to the history of images, photographs that reflect life and entropy, and functional objects that no longer function in their original way. These ever-present themes and subjects filtered through the lens of an artist can, however, make them extraordinary. There was no shortage of those types of transformations going on in terms of color, point of view, and (pardon the ubiquitous art phrase) uncanny juxtapositions. I believe this show will allow viewers to say “yes, I know that too” and conversely “wow, I never thought of that”!

One of the results of the recent pandemic that was neither life threatening, nor life affirming, is the cementing-in of the virtual/digital life. As a professor I have been hiring faculty and admitting students by judging art through a computer screen for many years. This is not ideal. As a maker myself, I like to believe that I haven’t been seduced by the backlit messenger and can see through to the artist’s intentions. As I viewed the entries, I was surprised that there were very few works that reflected or challenged this new reality. Maybe we are thrilled to return to some temporary pre-pandemic comfort? That is fine with me. There is no substitute for seeing art in person. Consider yourself lucky if you are able to stand in front of a work of art, in the same way that the artist did, and take it in through your eyes, your mind, and your body. Seeing the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora in a book is much different than having them descend on your sternum as you stand before the actual works in Ravenna. At the time of this writing, I have only virtually experienced this show. I am eager to see the work in person, for real and in context. If you have seen the show or are looking at it now at Goggleworks, thank you for making the effort to seek out the real thing.

About the Juror:

Mark Mahosky received his MFA from Stanford University (1988) and his BFA from Tyler School of Art (1986). In Summer 2015, Mahosky was a National Park Service Artist-in-Residence at the Gettysburg National Military Park. He has had solo exhibitions at Haas Gallery of Art, Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA; Alysia Duckler Gallery, Portland, OR; Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA; Joseph Rickards Gallery, New York; and Gimpel Weitzenhoffer Gallery, New York. Mahosky has been featured in group exhibitions at Fleisher/Ollman; the Ice Box, Philadelphia; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; Open Space, Baltimore, MD; and Gettysburg College Art Gallery, Gettysburg, PA, among others. He is Professor of Painting at Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA.

Bridie Alvarez

Rachael Bath

Richard Begbie

Acacia Bermudez

Kevin Brett

Jen Brown

Melissa Bryant

Ivan Bub

Kat Collins

Alyssa Cross

Michael Cruz

Mia Curran

Amanda D’Agostino

Liz Danish

Miles DeCoster

Jane DeGrunchy

Juliana Delgado

Kevin Durkin

Madisyn Evans

Cecelia Grant

Julia Grosso

Emily Haag

Timmy Houck

Jade Jaroszenski

Anna Kocher

Melanie Linder

Hannah Lindsay

Julia Lundy

Keri Marini

Victoria Marzari

Tija Matiss

Rosemary McBride

Moriah Mylod

Christy O’Connor

Kasia Ozga

Jill Pearson

Vincent Pellegrini

Raegan Pilgert

Ariel Posh

Jacquelyn Rambo

Abigail Ranic

Nicholas Roberts

Tindaekwe Roberts

Cassi Rodriguez

Erika Salus

Anna Schweigert

Sandra Scicchitani

Morgan Shankweiler

Kimberly Stemler

Joseph Strain

Robyn Wall

Don Weaver

Nina Yocom

My art seeks to explore the way my identity has been formed by lived experiences and environments. As I reflect on the most formative moments throughout my life, I have found that they primarily occur within domestic spaces and revolve around the categories of religion, family, gender, and ethnicity. . While each piece is personal to my own biography, I hope that the viewer can connect to my story, or simply reflect on the notion of being an individual formed by their embodied context.

When painting the natural environment, I feel calmer and at peace with myself. The content of my work is the exploration and depiction of the innate beauty that surrounds us, found within landscapes too seascapes. Pushing the individual to engage and think about the world, to see and experience the vast landscape and acknowledge the commodities it provides for us to live. Creating art that explores the alluring scenery that comes from our natural world with a touch ofwhimsical memory. Striving to escape the constant busy life that isformed within our culture and molded into our society.

In my photographs, the viewer first sees the close-up views of realistic subjects. Through further examination, the abstract elements of the image force the viewer to experience the duality of the subject matter. I use my camera to provide a vision of the realistic image on a second aesthetic level but emphasizes the abstract components of both line and form. By incorporating natural and enhanced use of texture and color, I convey a multi-layered image to the viewer.

Navigating the optical extremes of the human senses, Bermudez uses recognizable characters from South Park, The Simpsons, and other animated figures as an exploration of how she processes information through the media she consumes. The information relies mostly on visual sensations rather than emotional attachment. Some of the imagery in her pieces are flat while others may be painted dimensionally or scribbled in layers. Bermudez’s collection of work leaves some room for the viewer to explore their connections to the characters represented. She primarily focuses on transforming said characters into compositions and situations that typically are unexpected. She also explores different formal techniques within the spectrum of oil paint and pastel, primarily on paper.

Kevin Brett

Jen Brown

Kevin finds it very challenging to take everyday, overlooked objects or subject matter, people or situations and capture them in ways that the viewer can extract feelings from personal experiences of their own. Great effort is made to have everything within the compositions become valuable characters in the motionless plays captured through a lens. The use of unusual and dramatic angles gives the photographs views intended to make seemingly insignificant items a bit more powerful and emotional. While sometimes including people in his fine art photographs, Kevin attempts to capture what it is to be human within every image.

Jen Brown is a multidisciplinary artist who seeks to ask and answer questions through their holistic practice of making and moving through the world. Jen depicts the beauty in sadness, and vice versa, that they connect with in the world. Their work absorbs and contains moments as a personal place-marker. The act of documentation feels at once futile and vital; the act of creating is narcissistic, luxurious, wasteful; empowering, joyful. Creativity, critical thinking and collaboration both challenge and reward. Integrating community, domesticity, and paid work into social practice, Jen appreciates the balance of all things within perpetuity.

Alleluia

Travel inspires my landscapes. I wield a palette knife alla prima, creating an impasto surface. I convey energized stillness in my images, a respite in a world of complexities. Painting the timeless beauty of nature fulfills a yearning for simplicity, tranquility, and reverence in striking contrast to our tumultuous world. My daily rituals begin with meditation, prayer, and Tai chi because creativity flows more easily when I am at peace. These activities are an integral part of my art and transcend the canvas. Thus, artmaking encourages me to see a grander horizon and prompts feelings of deep gratitude and hope.

Erythritol and Sodium Metasilicate Crystal Photomicrograph • photography •

17” x 23” x 3/4 “ • 2022

I am a retired family physician with a passion for science and its application to photography. Although I enjoy all aspects of photography including landscape photography , street photography, macro photography and infrared photography, my focus has been on Cross Polarized Light Photomicrography, which is where various substances such as Ascorbic Acid, Erythritol, Sulfur or combinations of substances are crystallized on a microscope slide and photographed with camera attached to microscope under cross polarized light. Each slide is unique and no two slides are the same.

Alyssa Cross

Using mixed media on canvas, I create abstract landscape paintings from memory and imagination, conveying emotional states and an openness to the process. It is delving into the world around me, not simply as it appears to me, but from a deeply subjective, human experience. The sacredness of the natural world and my travels influence my artwork heavily. I am constantly seeking the divine within nature, rather than beyond it, re-enchanting the awe, wonder, magic, and interconnectedness within us to the world around us. It’s about finding my place in nature and discovering that illusive sense of genuine belonging. It’s about being truly in the moment, aware of the presence of life around you, and letting it fill you.

My goal as an artist is to explore a full range of values within the painted surface. I explore light on a variety of subjects, but the human form feels the most genuine, personal, and honest. I approach a painting with the curiosity of what might be inside. I don’t want to necessarily solve the questions though, I want to leave them for the audience to wonder with me.

Michael Cruz’s oil paintings examine the relationship between space, memory and terrain. In his autobiographical landscapes and still life pieces, the artist seeks to express the mystery of nature and the echo that visited places can reverberate in the memory of shared experiences. The colors, shapes and forms are not just what is seen, but what is felt and remembered. The works seek to capture that ambiguous space between the captured image and the energy and power of being before nature and beauty. The artist reflects on those moments and relives them through the process of making the piece.

I enjoy capturing the essence of the world around us. My images depict what is easily missed, showing the unexpected. I want my images make an impression and have an impact on the viewer. I have a BA in Anthropology from Penn State University, with master classes in Anthropology, Education, and Accounting. I belong BPS, CCAA, LCAA, PAAG, and LNC. I have placed in many juried shows, awarded 1st at PAAG in photography. I am not a professional photographer yet! Until recently, I only shot images with my 35mm Canon camera. In the last 10 years I predominately capture my images with an iPhone 12ProMax; it is the camera I always carry. I haven’t stopped capturing images of the unknown.

Amanda D’Agostino

My artwork pulls out beauty from the mundane, elevating common scenes to imaginative and beautiful reveries. Always representational and expressive with hints of impressionism, I play with design, composition, and colors in order to capture the feeling I had when viewing any given scene or subject. “Crust Moon I” and “Crust Moon II” are from my new 10 Squared Project, which celebrates light, color, and shadow in local landscapes.

Liz Danish

Purple Mountains is an exploration of color, shape and texture inspired by Montana landscape. I hand dye cotton fabric, machine piece and machine quilt using polyester thread and cotton batting. I looked at a photograph of a favorite area in Glacier National Park, then worked improvisationally to lay out the placement of the elements before sewing the pieces together.

Miles DeCoster

Battle Scene from the Great Conflict between Don Carnal and Dona Curisima • casein on cradled panel • 40” x 30” • 2023

The annual “battle” between Mardi Gras and Lent was imagined in 16th-century Spanish literature as a great conflict between the foods allowed in Lent (basically vegetables) and those forbidden (basically meat). The account I read was sadly lacking in pictures. No more!

Jane DeGrunchy

The natural environment is a continual source of inspiration for my watercolor paintings. My work often explores wildlife and botanicals in a close-up format, as if holding the object out to the viewer. Through these intimate views, I want others to draw upon their own experiences with nature and feel a sense of awe. I am fascinated how living organisms are adapted to their environment by color and design. Ultimately, my work underlines the importance of nature to our world. Not only does nature enrich our lives through beauty, but also, through reflecting aspects of ourselves back to us.

Juliana Delgado

Of the Backwards, and Reflecting Time Which Slips Through Hands • analog photography • 36” x 48” • 2023

My artistic practice develops the intersection between body, space and time according to a specific context. I understand this relationship from a formal and sensitive aspect, which is governed by key concepts such as self-knowledge within space, the influence of a context and how it is inhabited, the notions of memory in a space, the spatio-corporal link, hybridisation and metamorphosis. I currently live and work in the United States - PA where my interest has turned to the construction of new sensitive perceptions of space from the experience that the body allows itself. This with the possibility of constructing images from organic (sculptural or object) and audiovisual media.

Kevin Durkin creates work that centers around an abstract sense of nostalgia and memory. The work resurrects moments that may not have occurred, may never occur, but still feel vaguely familiar. It could be a place, or a brief moment in time, when even a sound, smell, or a flash of light can bring you something that feels like home. Often dealing with themes of loss and longing, Durkin’s work comes from the most personal of places, all the while bringing the viewer an undeniably universal experience.

Madisyn Evans

My work in multiple mediums communicate with one another to bring together mementos from everyday life that have little value. I collect old images, magazines, fibers, trinkets, and other materials. Creating work in ceramics, collage, and silkscreen printing allows an intimate experience with the work by engaging multiple senses and drawing on every day routines. It alludes to the action of looking at objects and encountering the feelings and memories they provoke. The mediums are contextualized through the repetition of life and accessibility of printing and collage. It engages with the new “diary culture” of social media, cataloguing the mundane objects, and collecting keepsakes.

In 2019, I started painting on translucent polyester film, which provides a smooth surface to capture space with ethereal light. By using acrylic paint on mylar, I mark out the general composition. I take advantage of the translucent nature of the material and work on both the front and the back. My work begins by spending time with the subject and creating observational sketches. In my newest work, I allow a variety of ideas to exist together. I believe they reflect the process of change – self–doubt, and paradoxically, freedom from that doubt.

In my practice, I am fueled by personal experiences of fear. The works pay homage to my battles with vulnerability, anxiety, acceptance and decision paralysis. I make use of written and drawn elements and mixed media to showcase a range of decorated/ defaced texture. My hand is intuitive, expressive and gestural regardless of medium. Utilizing a muted palette reminiscent of grit and construction-site annotation, I layer color and material with rhythmic, graphic patterns and figurative suggestion. This union of visual language seems impossible to turn away from while making. The result is a wordless, familiar connection with the viewer.

I begin each work impulsively and spontaneously. Mixing the sand into acrylic has become as much a part of the art as the piece itself. The composition comes 2nd to the process of manipulating the materials. Sand often evokes enjoyable memories of going to my grandparents’ beach house. The rhythmic motion of the crashing waves gives a sense of comfort and familiarity. Jacques Benveniste theorized that water holds memory. Now a widespread cliché made known by Disney, the theory still rings true to my process. Memory is very important to my work, and can often be blurred or distorted by time.

Timmy Houck

Working with a pallet knife or my fingers, I develop the surface of oil paintings through highly textured mark-making. Depicting my own experiences despite not explicitly portraying myself within the work. Recreating memories from my life through the tactility of paint and texture gives a surreal experience. With the addition of blobs or ghost-like figures, I am reinventing what I’ve witnessed. I am capturing them in different contexts to create an ecosystem where they can live harmoniously.

Jade Jaroszenski

The focus of my work is reflecting on my immediate surroundings, and color palettes expressing the emotions that I associate with that space. Through constructing places into abstract forms, they depict light, temperature, time of day, and seasons. Currently my paintings rely on both observation and imagination, sometimes referring to photographs I’ve taken and other times working from plein air. Beginning a painting with a colored ground instead of a white background is part of my process, allowing me to utilize positive and negative space within my compositions.

These paintings are an exploration of memory and longing. Lines dissolve between past and future, real and imagined, remembered and hoped for. I incorporate images from dreams, memories, old photos and ephemera and the visions these things evoke. The media and application themselves reinforce the theme with broken marks on a fragile surface; fragments of words and marks, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes discordant, always searching for revelation and connection between dissonant states. The partial, incomplete nature of the images echoes the fragmented quality of memory itself.

I graduated from Kutztown University where I studied Communication Design with a concentration in Illustration. After working strictly digitally while having small babies at home I was craving the hand-to-paper work and process of painting and cutting so started my collection entitled, “Paper Cuts”. This collection features acrylic painted contact paper cut into the shapes and motifs inspired by my roots in Pa Dutch culture. Also in the collection are many collages created by my up-cycling of my art prints mixed with vintage books and materials exemplifying my true Pa Dutch frugality.

While communication is not something I have mastered vocally, I have found using visual clues create conversations. Using imagery inspired by children’s book illustrations, it creates an accessible way to reach others on a common level while pairing it with something the viewer does not expect. That juxtaposition creates a new thought or invites the audience to respond internally, creating a connection I may not have been able to achieve before. In my process, using a medium that requires more time such as oil or printmaking allows time for me to have a conversation within myself while making as well.

Julia Lundy is a Pennsylvania-based oil painter whose body of work is inspired by the conflict between reality and illusion. She depicts reality as a constitution of perspectives that stem from who and what we trust. This idea, along with the variability in the human perception of reality, is what inspires her paintings. In discovering painting as a translation of reality, Lundy takes advantage of the possibilities for altering elements of space, color, and form within the realm of realism. Motivated by the number of accessible media, advancements in medicine and bodily alteration, and the chemistry of human brain activity, Julia Lundy creates art in order to depict reality as a construct that can be easily confused with illusion.

Kari Marini

As an artist, I gain inspiration from everyday experiences with nature. My paintings serve as windows out to the landscape while including the impact that nature can have on our psyche. With a large focus on the color blue, I bring in my own emotional connection with the natural world, as well as capture a dramatized version of the logical landscape. The paintings are associated more with feelings, emotions, and movements within that time of day and place rather than capturing an image alone. With each piece, I experiment with new ideas and follow where my brush strokes lead me.

Victoria Marzari

I have been working with acrylic paints since fingerpainting in the backyard with my siblings as a child. Art has always been a place where I’m free to explore feelings, thoughts, frustrations, and an escape from reality. Nature, a daily place of inspiration, has given me a home where I can just breathe and meditate on the joys of life despite environmental factors. In exploring places for the next adventure or finding solitude in memories, landscape paintings have become a daily activity devoid of media and distractions. In living in an age where time flies by so quickly, peace amongst the chaos slips by too often. Through the act of painting, I create spaces of solitude, regrowth, and peace.

Tija Matiss is an artist of Latvian, Canadian, and American nationality. Her work is an exploration through many mediums of an organic and geometric abstract place. With use of light and line, she highlights the cascade of shapes around us, incorporating both a childlike questioning and a mature understanding. Traditional Latvian pagan motifs aid in this storytelling. These works, made with found material (otherwise would be trash) continue her pursuit to recreate the visual and visceral world with the means gifted to her.

I am a fiber artist. I work with fabric dyes and paints applied to white cotton fabric to create solid color and multicolored color cloth through mark making, mono printing, silk screens and stencils. My first instinct is to combine colors and shapes. The composition comes together on a design board section by section. I love the process of experimentation with technique and color. I feel my pieces express my joy for life through color.

Moriah Mylod is a Visual Artist via Interdisciplinary Arts, a Registered Art Therapist, and an Adjunct Professor of Art Therapy. Moriah is residing in the North-West region of New Jersey with her husband and fur creatures. She primarily works in her home studio, Birdseye in The Attic where she explores various art processes (mostly) painting medium applications on canvas, paper, and wood-- as well as explores mixed-media, writing streams of consciousness, and building assemblages. Moriah‘s art process is intuitive in nature—her artwork unveils the unseen world of her heart, psyche, and spirit where she emotionally materializes the moods we hold as humans in vividly untamed colored inner-landscapes that are evocative in expressionism.

My work often depicts female archetypes inspired by fairytales, mythologies, and historical figures in multilayered mixed media bodies of work and installations. I create maximalist works that mimic the way in which we are so frequently bombarded with imagery and notions that perpetuate patriarchal and oppressive viewpoints. I am especially interested in how women have been perceived and portrayed throughout history, literature, and modern forms of media through the lens of the male gaze. I often wonder how patriarchal standards affect societal and cultural norms and mores as a whole, religious and social class systems and gender and sexuality.

The RE_MOVE series is the product of a transatlantic dialogue in image and text from 2019-2020 between myself and poet Dan Rosenberg. Located in France, I produced images using the batik process with materials reclaimed from multiple former and ongoing projects including handmade paper, architectural drawing templates, thread, found pigments and mixed-media elements. Located in America, Rosenberg wrote poems that similarly expand this dialogue beyond the binary of correspondence by responding not just to Ozga’s images, but to other writers whose work spoke to the moment. This dialogue progressed as neither ekphrasis nor illustration, but as a series of incitements that continued until they exhausted my supply of repulped paper.

Beginning my career over twenty years ago as an illustrator, my early work involved building layers in Photoshop sourced from various materials to create collages. This digital exploration, coupled with my formal education in traditional media, served as a foundation for my mixed media abstract art. Inspired by the juxtaposition of man made artifacts against the landscape, my work begins intuitively using acrylics, collage, and drawing media. I utilize color, shape and texture to evoke a sense of movement that represents time and space, creating an imaginary landscape for the viewer to experience.

Vincent Pellegrini

I started with black & white imagery in 1967 which I processed & printed on my own through 1974. At that time, I switched over to color slides. Although I still did some color printing, that process was too difficult to continue. I eventually switched over to digital photography in 2014. Processing my raw image files on my computer certainly brought back many of the great feelings of my initial darkroom work. Recently, I went back to black & white, almost exclusively. I feel that this genre truly revels the emotions that I have experienced in the field. I do grand & intimate landscapes. I hope that my viewers share the excitement that these images give to me.

Through these artworks, I like to believe that there is still hope through the uncertainty. Just like the beauty through the pain. It will always be there, as long as you’re willing to find it. Take everything you could never put into words and create something that says it all for you. Art is like life, it might not last forever, but the impact will always be there. I hope one day these artworks will save lives, just like it did mine.

My paintings are entirely autobiographical yet not wholly based on reality. I aim to explore deep rooted emotions in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek yet honest way. My paintings are made only to serve myself; they are diary entries, dream journals, vision capturers, bad memories, rough days, heartbreak, and celebrations. A discussion between humor and trauma, my often surreal characters and settings create images more true than their realistic forms could ever be. By blending the absurd and the absurdly serious, I document the funny, and sometimes uncomfortable, parts of life.

As a child, fairies and fairytales were my escape. Nymphs, elves, hobbits, trolls, nixies, and sprites were my regular muse. Along the way, I lost some magick, focusing on realism, the morose, macabre, and what viewers would take “seriously”. Then, the pandemic struck, I was let go from my teaching job, and time stood still. With having now all the time in the world, I was able to find the magick again. I let my inner child out, and she found herself creating amongst the fairies. My work I’ve since been working on, has been to combine realism, with the qualities of the fae, wonder, and earthen delights. I paint to bring my younger self overwhelming joy.

I was born in the summer of ‘98 alongside my equally artistic twin, and as a result, I have always struggled to be my own person. This, accompanied by the perpetual absence of my mother, led me to create pieces that plead for attention while providing a window into the ripple effect of my past trauma. My work is the ultimate expression of an ego coming to terms with itself. Being queer and non-binary, my work touches on identity in the context of gender as well as non-conventional beauty. The “Room” series is about my experience with mental clutter translating to physical clutter.

It is my belief that all things of visual interest are derived from the idea of contrast, or lack thereof. Contrast can be implemented in endless forms, whether in the form of highlights and shadows or through the disparities in concept. I use various forms of contrast to reveal the human condition and explore the deeper psychological states of man. It is my belief that we as humans have a profound and innate emotional connection to the figure with or without knowing its identity. It is this innate emotional reaction that I seek to invoke in the viewer as they look upon my work.

Tindaekwe Roberts

Tindaekwe’s photography captures the natural beauty of our world, inspiring others to find wonder in their own lives. Her uplifting images connect us to the larger world beyond ourselves. Whether capturing mountains, historical buildings, or wildlife, Tindy strives to create inspiring and thought-provoking images. As someone who has found healing within nature, she uses her photography to inspire connection and wonder in others.

Cassi Rodriguez

Informed by the subconscious and executed by intuition, my paintings seek to examine the delicate balances between: chaos and order, comfort and discomfort, positive and negative. Through abstraction, I continue to investigate the sensations that occur simply by juxtaposing colors and shapes. Combinations of intense then subtle palettes are carefully chosen to fabricate a new world where formality meets emotion. On each painted surface I survey a field where the viewer can perhaps disengage from their own reality and enter a fantasy that transcends the present.

Erika Salus

18” x 18” • 2023

At a young age, I developed a strong visual relationship with family photographs. The fascination I have exceeds my own memories and allows my imagination to bridge the gap of what I cannot recall. The nostalgia I feel is the culmination of physical artifacts and the narratives I’ve created from perceived memories. Through painting, I am allowing myself to think deeply about the various figures and scenarios in the photographs. I have a new affinity for captured moments as a tool to start a conversation beyond myself, and to better understand my own identity and family.

Art is both a natural compulsion and spiritual exercise for me, and my process feels like a meditation on order and chaos. Printmaking gives me the opportunity to work indirectly, with the results remaining a mystery until they arrive. Lately those prints have been taking on new life after the ink or paper dries, and I have been finding ways to incorporate added materials and processes into the mix.

Paint and thread bring new dimensions to embossed textures and inked designs, where nature, geometry, and pattern unite.

Sandra Scicchitani

It makes me happy when all the design components in my work havesomehow arranged themselves into a composition that is beautiful tolook at and elicits the serenity of contemplation.

Morgan Shankweiler

My work threads/mends/weaves together those elements that shape a life: chance, agency, systems and story. My studio practice fluctuates between painting and game creation as I work to articulate how humans connect and relate to each other at the intersections of social contact. Fascinated with the overlap between the rules and systems of games and the rules and systems of social life, I consider the ramifications of the social systems we live in and model recognizable moments in social time through the visual recording of aleatoric game play. I approach my observations of human behavior through a trained sociological lens, utilizing both ethnographic and quantitative analysis, and straddling a line between realistically rendered metaphor and more abstract data visualization.

my paintings are densely patterned, focused on color, filled with yearning. i am captivated by theearth’s linear quality, the moment of place where sky touches earth and what happens in those remaining spaces that eventually arrive at our feet. i chisel away at the natural world, patching together bits and pieces, composing and rebuilding the landscape. repeated fragments, dissected skies, slabs of earth. capturing moments, giving the viewer recollection- a sense of having been there. accumulation and repetition, intricacies found in the structure of organic objects, the concept of time and space through light and layers.

I’m inspired by our natural world to create my own little worlds, with familiar yet abstracted creatures and lifeforms influenced by the ones I see around me.

I construct locations as reimagined spaces by examining a history of homes in my local townscape. My prints integrate memories with photo documentation and drawing to reflect an environment of personal narratives. I depict imagery of residential living through the remnants of occupants. The understanding I have of my surroundings are incorporated through landscape, implied narrative, structures and materials. I am working to acknowledge the fluidity of memories while reflecting both real and imagined spaces.

I work in mixed media, i enjoy found objects, i appreciate the little quirks that occur when dissimilar entities meet, i pursue that juxtaposition of color,form ,texture, line, imagery, context ,tone,relevance & meaning. for me,the act of composition becomes a balancing of just some of those limits or factors. i am fond of obscure pun & vague narrative.

Nina Yocom

I am a self-taught artist, born and raised in suburban Philadelphia. My earliest exposure to fine art was when my mother volunteered in my public elementary school with “Art Goes to School”. This innovative program exposed me to a variety of artists and their work, along with an understanding of the color wheel and how colors work together. My father, an award-winning photographer, also influenced my own lens. This background, along with a liberal arts education, cultivated an appreciation for how art is a conduit of connection. As an emerging artist in my early 50s, I feel that I am making a radical re-discovery of self, enhanced by the act of creating.