@ INSURANCE: Emily Mueller, Doorway into Thanks
Doorway into Thanks is a group of digital and physical abstract drawings. Digital images are flattened into pattern and form, resulting in something more like drawing or painting than photography. Screen-based and traditional media exist together symbiotically and inform each other. The distance between these disparate methods is collapsed and explored through formalism. Meditative in its repetitive marks, this body of work seeks comfort in the labor and joy of making.
@ GREASE: Padyn Humble, Baby blue, too
Baby blue, too articulates the experience of fleeting romance and lonesomeness in rural America through the use of old country music. By using the emotional scaffolding of songs like Lonely Blue Boy, Blue Bayou, Kentucky Rain and Crazy, I equate these stories as allegory for a rural queer experience. This genre utilizes vulnerable pageantry to create heightened narratives that produce a cinematic impact for listeners. Ultimately, this romantic transparency depicts a cultural understanding of what it is to love and to lose through iconic imagery and language. This work unpacks the nuances of queer desire in isolated areas which are informed by the poetics of cowboy masculinity. The intersection of longing and sexuality are explored through patterns, form, color and symbolic imagery
@ IN/OUT: James Coleman, Snap Crap
Channeling his love of vintage everything into his daily creative process, James’ collages depict what he calls a psychedelic social media meltdown, invoking the daily bombardment of conflicting imagery on our strained public psyche.
@ DOMESTIC: Cory Mahoney, an amber of this moment
An Amber of This Moment is a rumination on the ever-changing spaces we inhabit and how it feels to occupy them in the fever dream of today’s American late capitalism. As an observer trying to process the abundance and decline that exists simultaneously in a city that by most measures is considered to be prospering, I see a continued disregard for what use can be made of the materials and structures already in place. Sections of Columbus Ohio are booming beyond their capacity or creating new problems by changing too quickly, while other spaces are divested and abandoned. I collect images of construction and demolition throughout the Midwest and collage them into impossible arrangements that become ceramic relief wall works in an attempt to harness and display our complex relationship with the world around us. My ceramic chairs refer to the natural landscapes and resources we exploit to construct our urban environments. By placing them directly in front of the pictorial wall pieces, I’m encouraging the viewer to take their time. To consider when, where, how these structures were created. To consider the toll it takes to keep constructing them. To sit is to make the decision to stay, even if staying means going at the same time.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Emily Mueller is a multimedia artist working primarily with photography and drawing. Her conceptual interests lie in the similarities between digital and physical mark making. Based in Saint Louis, she teaches photography and graphic design at Lindenwood University and drawing and painting to kids around the city. Mueller has exhibited work in both online and physical publications as well as in galleries in California and Missouri. She received her MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis and BA from University of San Diego. In her free time, she can be found drawing on the couch with her cat Ferris.
Padyn Humble is a sculptor from Montana whose work investigates tropes of cowboy masculinity and other social constructs for the way they influence identity. Through combination, exaggeration, and abstraction he reinterprets the intention of our social and cultural objects to construct meaning through a queer perspective. Inspiration for his work stems from various influences like old country music, cartoons, pop culture, kitsch, and “masculine” aesthetics. He received a BFA in painting from the University of Montana.
James Coleman is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in clothing design and visual art. He channels his love of vintage everything into his daily creative process. His collages depict what he calls a psychedelic social media meltdown, invoking the daily bombardment of conflicting imagery on our strained public psyche
Cory Mahoney is a sculptural artist primarily working with ceramic processes. Based in Columbus OH, he is a cofounder of Dream Clinic Project Space and has participated in exhibitions and residencies across North America. Originally from Southern California, he received his MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University in 2018 and his BFA in Ceramics from California State University Long Beach in 2015. He is currently a Visiting Artist and Lecturer of Ceramics in the Art Department at The Ohio State University.