HIGHLIGHTS
The change of the seasons can stir up deep emotions. There is uncertainty and anticipation as the days get shorter, the wind picks up, and the mornings grow colder. It is at these times that I find myself both introspective and aching for connection with others. For me, this cocktail of emotional contradictions can be soothed by a good book, a show, or some art. Viewing the following exhibitions, I felt connected with fellow human beings who, through their unexpected processes and determination, create work that gives us openings into their journeys and identities.
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At FJORD Gallery, the organic forms and hidden depths of Nodes of Crossing showcase how artists’ collaboration and connection can be a kind of reinvention. To Be Bound By Place and Lore, at Pentimenti, is a quiet, introspective show that explores the places we live and how they weave mythologies and narratives into our psyches. Holly Wong’s show at Bridgette Mayer illustrates the transformative power of abstraction to provide space for both the viewer and the artist to reflect and heal. Stopping at the Barnes on its international tour, Mickalene Thomas’ All About Love presents the artist’s figurative and bold compositions and sparkling designs, bolstered by her intimate connection to the people she depicts.
Nodes of Crossing at FJORD @Fjord_
On view through December 21, 2024
Featuring: Oakley Tapola and Hannah Lee Hall
As an artist, it can be difficult to maintain forward momentum. Unfinished projects collect and stagnate, experiments dead end, and inspiration seems elusive. The unique sculptures/assemblages created by Oakley Tapola and Hannah Lee Hall find a playful and cathartic resolution to these struggles. In 2021, they began exchanging their discarded experiments to see if they would develop into something new. As the pieces moved back and forth, patterns began to form, pathways grew, and new connections developed in unpredictable ways. Fittingly, the show’s title Nodes of Crossing references the growth of fungal threads and the branching patterns that enable mycelium to reroute and regenerate after injury or infection.
These shallow wall-mounted sculptures take many shapes: some distorted squares, others organic forms. The work invites exploration. There are little hidden experiences to discover on every surface alongside partially obscured windows and doors to peer through. Embedded throughout are naturalistic patterns, strange sculpted faces, and a variety of found objects. Trails of strings and checkered patterns form pathways through textural spaces, like game boards from an ancient society. The interplay of sand, paper pulp, and line is captivating, creating objects that might have been crafted from a combination of earth, fossils, and artifacts from a culture that never was. The result is a body of sculptures that read simultaneously as serious and lighthearted, presenting spaces filled with mystery and ambiguous purpose.
To Be Bound By Place and Lore at Pentimenti @pentimentigallery
On View Through December 20, 2024
Featuring: Anne Buckwalter, Dan Gunn, Raúl Romero, Isaac Scott, and Soyeon Shin
Showcasing work from five distinctly different artists, To Be Bound By Place and Lore explores the tethering of our identity to the places we inhabit and our constructed mythologies. Emphasizing the complex and multifaceted experience of home through the lens of memory and the everyday, each of these artists offers an empathetic window into distinct communities and history.
South Korean artist Soyeon Shin and Philadelphia artist Isaac Scott both integrate lived experience with surrealist imagery to examine themes of disruption and belonging in their urban environments. Scott draws from experiences in West Philadelphia to create textured ceramic heads that serve as metaphors for the community. Crumbling and under construction, these portraits appear to be formed from lumber and brick and are decorated with roses. In contrast, Shin paints smooth, meticulous dreamscapes with unified colors, focusing on small, everyday aspects of city life, creating a feeling of floating within her memories.
Anne Buckwalter and Dan Gunn’s works look at different aspects of rural culture in America to discuss identity and place. Using a folk art aesthetic, Buckwalter cleverly integrates mundane and provocative imagery, creating floral patterns and striking domestic interiors inspired by her Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. Dan Gunn’s wooden tapestries simulate folds of fabric and speak to the ideology surrounding labor and life in the country. Stitched together with nylon cords, these sculptures are satisfyingly well crafted and portray iconic imagery of nostalgic country toys and weather-veins. Lastly, Raul Romero fuses recordings of frogs from Puerto Rico and fish from Tampa Bay, reproduced through copper transducers to create an unusual auditory experience that taps into the power of sound to connect viewers with memory.
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Incantations at Bridgette Mayer Gallery @bmayergallery
On View Through December 14, 2024
Featuring: Holly Wong
Wong’s meticulous patterns are free-flowing, churning, and spiraling like ink in a glass of water. She cuts and layers tangled images from drawing and painting mediums to create twisting designs and tight-knit patterns. The integration of so many mediums is exciting, but it is the interplay of different rendering styles that draws me in. Meticulous line drawings, loosely painted turning forms, and watery blooms of paint are collaged together and integrated into one unified, undulating surface.
She begins these constructions by drawing raw images of crime scenes and physical violence and then layers her colorful and ephemeral images on top of them. Wong explains, “I utilize this layering as a way of nature reclaiming and growing over the pain, producing a beautiful scar.”
There is a meditative, airy quality to all of her work. At the far end of the gallery, a room-sized installation fills the space, casting twirling shadows on the wall. Wong suspends colorful pieces of cut acrylic from the ceiling so that they appear to float and gather into a long serpentine form. In the side gallery, mesmerizing drawings made of candle smoke, pencil, and gouache speak of the spirit, breath, and femininity. Incantations is a captivating show with an underlying message of hope.
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love at the Barnes @barnesfoundation
On view through January 12th, 2025
Featuring: Mickalene Thomas
Curated by: Renée Mussai
Showcasing paintings, collages, photographs, videos, and several site-specific installations created over Mickalene Thomas’s long and impressive career, All About Love is a phenomenal exhibition that you can not miss. Thomas’s work interweaves references to famous paintings throughout art history with Blaxploitation cinema, Black female erotica, and portraits of herself and people with whom she is close. Her artwork intentionally inserts itself into the traditional art historical canon, presenting what Thomas calls “an empowered vision of beauty and desire, formulated through a black feminist lens.”
Thomas is well known for the elevation of rhinestones and other craft materials in her compositions, but if you have only viewed her artwork online, you will miss how fully dazzling these pieces are. I had to look away from “Liz With Hoops” several times because I felt overwhelmed by their shimmer. Her surfaces are exciting to explore; she combines flat areas of color with textural brush marks and complicated overlapping patterns created from thick paint, textiles, and rhinestones. The nostalgic aesthetic recalls bygone decades, reinforced by her color palettes and use of custom panels with curved edges, reminiscent of old photographs.
The size, placement, and compositions are all designed to command the space psychologically and physically. Her larger-than-life figures and portraits showcase women exuding life and agency. These women enjoy time with friends, relaxing comfortably in brightly patterned domestic interiors, and are comfortable with their sexuality. Her subjects resonate as real women with complicated internal lives. Thomas knows her models well and calls them her “chorus of muses.” She frequently depicts the same subjects in her paintings, exploring themes in photography and then in paint. This familiarity translates into intimate and captivating portraits.
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About the writer: Claire Haik is an artist and educator living in Philadelphia. Her work focuses on natural imagery and examines the hidden processes beneath the visual exterior of nature. You can see her work and learn more about her here.