Ryan Sarah Murphy Boarding and Day 3, 2020, spray paint, pencil, collage on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches
Ryan Sarah Murphy Boarding and Day
December 1 to December 31, 2024
“My creative practice is intuitive and process-driven, generated by the found ephemera of my daily experience. The process of collage lies at the foundation of everything I make. The emergent themes I tend to arrive at again and again are all rooted in landscape, where the geometry of the horizon line acts as either a conceptual or physical starting point on the paper. I am interested in the psychological underpinnings within spatial forms and the built environment, and how the configuration of architectural elements can be shaped to personify one’s inner experience. There is a seemingly incessant drive to find grounding and placement in a widely untethered space, be it the concrete terrain beneath our feet or the visceral dwellings of the interior self.”
>LINK TO THE SPOTLIGHT
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Ryan Sarah Murphy Throughway—Purple (Gather), 2020, unpainted cardboard, glue on Arches paper, 11 x 7.5 x 0.25 inches
Ryan Sarah Murphy Throughways
November 1 to November 30, 2024
“Throughways is an ongoing series of works on paper started in 2020. During the early days of the COVID lockdown I found it difficult to concentrate on the many works-in-progress I had going on in the studio. The confusion and heaviness of that time led me to seek refuge in mind-emptying processes of routine line-making and structured repetition. My focus shifted to the many leftover cardboard cuts and fragments I had amassed from previous collage pieces. Working within the set parameters of the paper’s edge, I repeatedly aligned and layered these strips of color primarily as a way of finding controlled comfort amidst so much uncertainty. These pieces are a meditation on color continuum and interaction, stasis vs. momentum, and the interplay between the handmade form and it’s graphic/digital semblance.”
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Donnabelle Casis Untitled (221-06), 2021, gouache on paper, 20 x 16 inches
Donnabelle Casis Channel
September 1 to October 31, 2024
“The word 'channel' is a multi-level reference. It can be defined as a length of water joining two larger areas of water; a band of radio or TV frequencies; the direction towards a particular end or object; and, finally, in service as a medium. I believe creating art is a form of divination. By joining and directing images and perceptions, we are able to contextualize our life experience.
“I am fascinated by visual perception and how meaning is derived from what we see. I look for hidden geometries which may connect discrete perspectives to form a greater whole. My current paintings explore the relationship of personal identity to visual systems of signification in both ancient and modern cultures. I draw from various sources such as Filipino tribal tattoos and textiles, trajes de luces (suits of light) or bullfighting costumes, and facial recognition software, among others. Filipino tribal imagery is tied to storytelling, marks of accomplishment, and societal roles. Spanish bullfighting attire has deep ties to familial history and status. Facial recognition software maps physical characteristics which determine one’s visual identity. I filter these images to create my own configurations as an analog of cultural hybridity.”
>LINK TO THE SPOTLIGHTS: SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER
Minor Matters Books 2020, 9 x 12 inches vertical, hardcover, 168 pages
Minor Matters Books
Among Peers: The United States of Young Photographers
August 1 to 31, 2021
Among Peers brings together recent work by 110 young people, most between fourteen and twenty years old, who have studied and been mentored in photography through longstanding youth services organizations dedicated to the medium. Isolation restrictions due to COVID-19 immediately changed programs that had long prioritized in-person mentorship and guidance, yet each one of these organizations found ways to continue engaging with their constituents.
The photographs included in this publication hold the depression, loneliness and boredom that many of us felt throughout 2020 (and possibly throughout our adolescence, also); they also show joy, vulnerability, and visual experimentation in defining a sense of surrounding environment, and identity.
>LINK TO AMONG PEERS
Cover photograph by Frances Sy, NYC Salt
Ariana Page Russell Black Sage, 2021, archival pigment print, 19 x 13 inches
Ariana Page Russell Bloom Back
June 1 to July 31, 2024
“The blooms, my skin, and how my body understands its place in the Southern California landscape. Impressions from local flora that stay long enough to photograph, temporarily changing the tactility of my skin, mirroring what’s pressed against it. Reverence for the life this Tongva land brings forth.
“I collect flora found in and around the mountains near my home. One way I get to know it is to press it to my skin, revealing the scent and outline of the plant. I like to see what kind of marks are left on me—I have very sensitive skin so any little pressure or scratch leaves a painless, temporary welt. It’s due to a condition called dermatographia, which literally means ‘skin writing.’ This pressing doesn’t hurt, it actually feels good to share a moment with the plant’s beauty. I am reminded of the delicate strength of nature and the body.
“With my dermatographia and the natural materials I gather, a photographic series called Bloom Back came to be. My skin blooms back at the plant pressed against it, offering some reflection and appreciation, seeing how bodies can echo their surroundings.”
>LINK TO THE SPOTLIGHTS: JUNE | JULY
Patte Loper Quiet Country, installation view
Patte Loper Quiet Country
April 1 to May 31, 2025
“These psychic/corporeal maps and plant communication devices were created in response to nonhuman research practices I am undertaking at All Faiths Cemetery in Queens, NY. The cemetery runs through the center of Queens at its highest point, a vast and varied landscape that was long cared for by the Munsee Lenape and Canarsie tribes. Now connecting the neighborhoods of Glendale, Maspeth, and Middle Village, All Faiths sits on hilly land considered not suitable for farming by the working-class Christians who began using it as a burial ground in the 1800s. In its current existence, it is a loosely managed, abandoned-feeling space that has inadvertently become an urban sanctuary for native plants, insects, birds, and small mammals. There is a marked contrast between the vibrant proliferation of plant and animal life and the silent insistence of the memorials, the oldest of which date back to the founding of the cemetery, and the newest of which mark the recent graves of many pandemic dead. While these works reference historic Christian storytelling devices such as reliquaries and tapestries, they are interested in telling new stories that atone for the past and build new futures.”
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Larry Graeber Rewrite, 2021, collage, mixed medium, 20 x 26 inches
Larry Graeber Witnesses
March 1 to 31, 2021
“Last spring I got the strong impression of our citizenry as witnesses. The overwhelming pandemic, political agendas, misinformation and the struggle to identify what was right from erroneous declarations and deceit. Some things are undeniable, others are knowledge or propaganda-based, obligated to scrutiny.
“Witness and territory were the initial nouns of my realization but as the works moved forward the notion of territory became apparent also as a witness, something we may have influenced but more particularly descriptive, even as a work of art is a witness of itself characterized by its elements, inferences, and title.
“These works on paper were made with this mindset, nothing intentionally perceptive, simply from material on hand composed, assembled, and speculatively titled. Nonetheless this overwhelming cognitive atmosphere weighed in more sharply than usual. I knew how I wanted to identify them early on, and I'm excited about constructing an agenda for more witness works.”
>AVAILABLE WORK
Robert Yoder Untitled (1), 2020, duct tape on powder coated steel, 16 x 16 inches
Robert Yoder ANOTHER CONVERSATION WITH MYSELF
January 1 to February 28, 2025
“This body of work started out as an examination of identity. As the work abstracted, and as I let myself get lost in it, I realized the work was more about isolationism and the suffocation that can come from that. For me the images are spaces where being alone comes with a certain amount of resignation. They could be interpreted as plans for public spaces but I think they would be best realized away from populated areas. They are less public art and more a place of contemplation. My studio production of working during a quarantine has been filled with failures. I find I’m preparing surfaces for work but rarely finishing anything. Others have said it’s fine, that I’m laying the groundwork or starting the foundation for future paintings.”