UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

June 2 - 27, 2021

Opening Reception: Friday, June 4, 6-8:30 pm

Closing Reception:Sunday, June 27, 2-4 pm

“A Long Strange Trip”
Laurie Alpert

“Under Construction”
Kathryn Geismar

“A Long Strange Trip”
Laurie Alpert

On June 2, 2021, when the exhibition opens, my life will have been changed by Covid-19 for 443 days. On March 13, 2020, I stopped going into my shared studio and began working in my home living room. For many years my studio practice had been about photographs I’d taken of seemingly mundane things I came upon to which I was visually attracted.  I would then photograph them, transform them in Photoshop and turn them into Polyester Plate Lithographs and sculptural Artists’ Books.

The origin had always been inconsequential - it was the alteration process that gave the image its new life. Because Polyester Plate Lithography is a process that uses oil-based inks I was unable to go into my cooperative printmaking studio (Full Tilt Print Studio). As a result, I began making Gelli prints at home. Because Gelli prints are done on a printing plate made of gelatin, I work with acrylic paint to image them as it’s a lot easier to clean and requires less space.

 March 13, 2020, was also a very important date for me. Not having any idea how long we would be homebound due to the virus, I decided to begin making a Concertina Book by adding a page a day. Each page has a “dash” - which is part of a print I had previously made - but decided to cut up and transform into small rectangular shapes. On March 13, 2021, “365 Days, 365 Pages” was completed. Had it not, it was unclear to me when or if it would ever be completed.

 Something that has always been important to me is that my work at any one time is somehow connected with my other works - that there is a dialogue between the pieces I create, how one piece generates an idea for the next.

That is something that clearly has changed. One day I might do a print, the next day I might begin a book. A few days later I might find myself tearing up prints that I did in the nineties and creating mixed media pieces or turning them into mixed media books or even transforming them into funky box-like sculptures.

“A Long Strange Trip” is what my practice has become in the last 15 months.

“Under Construction”
Kathryn Geismar

Kathryn Geismar's most recent figurative work explores the nature of claiming an adolescent identity in an age when fluidity reigns and binary definitions of self no longer hold much meaning.   The figures move in and out of focus through the use of translucent veils of paint or mylar. Substrates range from the building material Tyvek to traditional canvases, often with grommets that pierce through the layers.