Unusual Surfaces

September 2 - October 1, 2023

Closing Party: Saturday September 30th, 2023 4-6pm 

Unusual Surfaces celebrates radical creativity from a diverse group of contemporary artists rejecting traditional fine art surfaces in favor of atypical mediums. Moving beyond the standard canvas, images gain new depths. Featuring a dynamic selection of work from emerging and mid-career artists, this exhibition encourages divergent approaches to representation and meaning making. Melissa Meier contemplates the relationship between spiritual connections to the natural world and the future of fashion with her sculptural clothing hybrids made from organic materials. Mike Stilkey extends the lives of discarded books by transforming them into sculptural totems featuring whimsically painted characters occupying ambiguous fantasy spaces. Visualizing racialized lived experiences, Linda Vallejo invokes the unrecognized presence of essential workers in her Brown Bouquets, Victorian style floral arrangements that continue to symbolize privilege in contemporary cultural contexts with the same vigor as the widening class divide in the United States. 

Participating artists: Mike Stilkey, Shelby Drabman, Melissa Meier, Anastassia Elias, Michael Mapes, Michelle Kingdom, Aaron Kramer, Linda Vallejo, Trevor Coopersmith, Linda Smith, Alexander McVickar, Ralph Allen Massey, Frank Platta, Jeremy Rise, Alexandra Dillon, Susan Hannon, Phillip Vaughan, Larry Bell, Nick Veasy, Melissa Furness, Gil Bruvel, Thomas Whittaker Kidd, Molly Gambardella, Zachary Aronson, Eric States, Larry Vigon