

Tangled Embrace
Charcoal, Ink, and Acrylic


Calm through me.
Charcoal, Ink, and Acrylic


I am your voice too.
Charcoal, Ink, and Acrylic


Walking in an Exaggerated Manner with Bruce Nauman, 2018
video


CAUTION PATRIARCHY DISRUPTION ZONE, 2020
acrylic


Child And Goat, 2020
Digital Photograph/Inkjet Print


Connections, 2018
collage on panel


Portrait: Courtney with Firmament, 2018
Acrylics on Canvas


Pages from my notebook: I give thanks, 2020
diptych collage


Don’t Rape # 17, 2020
Acrylic on Balsa with Poplar Cradle


Together, 2020
Pastel on board


Taking Care Of (being taken care of), 2018
Oil on canvas


Creation of Coleus, 2018
Oil on canvas


Daniel photographed by Thomas/Thomas photographed by Daniel, 2018
Two archival pigment prints


UNTITLED, 2020
inkjet print in artist frame


Compa_eros, 2020
Digital photography printed on fine art matte


Touch in the Time of COVID, 2020
Digitally Altered Photography


Man Love, 2020
Oil on Birch


Dwelling in the Southwest, 2020
Ceramic


61520, 2020
cherry, metal


51120, 2020
maple, metal


A Partial History (Book 3), 2019
Archival inkjet prints on luster paper


Girlfriends, 2018
Oil Bar on Canvas


Girlfriends #2, 2018
Oil Bar on Canvas


Sisters, 2018
oil on canvas


Keeping, 2019
Photograph mounted on a VHS tape


Being Social, 2019
Framed Photograph


Lockdown View, 2020


Lockdown View at Night, 2020


Untitled, 2018
oils


Lauren A. Toomer
Oil on canvas


Social Distanced, 2020


The Space Between, 2020
Oil on Canvas


Wisdom Fist, 2019
two color silkscreen, one color lithograph, edition of 20


Untitled, 2020
Basket vines and handcrafted needles
Zachary-Jordan Angeles
Cody Arnall
Jenny Balisle
David Bartlett
Stephanie Baugh
Wesley Bell-Miller
Elizabeth Bennett
Jennifer Buehner-Varley
Deziree Dizon
Carmel Dor
Daniel Georges & Thomas Simpfendoerfer
(Juror's Choice Award) Hasler Gomez
Cheryl L. Guerrero
Wesley Haack
Pamela Hartvig
William Ishmael
jim jacobs
Marina Kassianidou
Stela Mandel
Marianne McCraney
Robert Nunez (Juror's Choice Award)
Gwendolyn Pryor
Lauren Rayburn
Lauren A. Toomer
G. E. Vogt
Elise Weber (Juror's Choice Award)
Nathan Wong
Seongmin Yoo


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza


Juror: Marcela Pardo Ariza
Con Cariño, Tenderly
Back in early February, I was honored to be invited by the AXIS gallery team as a juror for their 15th National Exhibition. I proposed an exhibition on touch, intimacy and unintentional solitude in a time of oversaturated digital interaction. Our circumstances have drastically shifted; we are in the midst of a massive and poorly managed health crisis and facing historic uprisings against police brutality, needed structural change and Black Liberation. This time makes us reconsider who we are, where we are and how we want to be in relation to ourselves and others. It makes us question how we care for each other, and how to organize collectively to insist on urgent and long overdue individual and systemic changes. We invite you into this space to hold a moment for you to think about how you want to redirect this moment and energy moving forward. What does this collective moment mean to you? How can you empower and uplift others? How should this moment be represented in history?
The artists in the exhibition bring us to some of the places we are currently experiencing physically, emotionally, individually and collectively. We go from touch and intimacy, or lack thereof, reconsiderations of the body in domestic and public spaces. The work of Zachary-Jordan Angeles honors the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQAI+ communities, through tender portraits of touch and tenderness. Elizabeth Bennett reminds us of the often unspoken gratitude of daily interactions and moments of care from strangers, this gesture takes particular importance as we honor folks who are doing visible and invisible labor in the front lines. Jennifer Buehner-Varley calls attention to domestic aesthetics and the importance of consent, particularly in a time of ongoing shelter-in-place. Carmel Dor depicts the symbiotic relationship with the natural world through delicate gestures and interaction with other species. Jim Jacobs' work reminds us of the potential of quotidian objects and their anthropomorphic qualities. Robert Nunez’s work reveals our now acute awareness of physical distance between each other.
There is nostalgia for touch, physical gestures of care, collective spaces and a recognition of our own positionality. With that, this is an invitation to dive into the relatability of some of those feelings and the urgent need for change towards a future that is inclusive and caring of every single body. I am grateful to the artists, as always, for being vulnerable and sharing their work publicly, during this time. We must continue to create, and use these tools to understand even the most unprecedented times. Let’s continue to show up for each other fiercely and sometimes also tenderly. Let’s not ever forget the importance and the politics of care for one another.
By Marcela Pardo Ariza
Marcela Pardo Ariza (b. Bogotá, Colombia) is a visual artist and curator that explores transhistorical and intergenerational kinship, alternate forms of representation through photography and site-specific installations. Marcela has organized public programs and exhibitions at Southern Exposure, CTRL SHFT Collective, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Noroof Gallery, Knockdown Center and Root Division. Ariza is the recipient of the Tosa Studio Award 2017, an Alternative Exposure grant (2019, 2020), a Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Award, a finalist for the 2017 San Francisco Artist Award and an Alternative Exposure grantee (2018, 2019). Ariza holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, is a co-founder of Art Handlxrs and a former member of the Curatorial Council at Southern Exposure.