Alternative Greetings – Summer Ventis

Alternative Greetings reflects on the ways in which we have become connected and disconnected during the past two years. This show presents the collaborative projects “Alternative Greetings/Alternative Meetings” and “Heavier than Air” alongside new printed works. How can we successfully connect during and after the pandemic? How can we share the weight of our collective grief?

Water – Ray Gonzales

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Trompe l’oeil sculptures of water in unlikely forms. The artist explores the universally recognized and common element in the improbable form of a brick or ship or more in this surrealist exhibit. States the artist, “The boat isn’t IN the water. The boat IS the water.”

Kevin Tracy – Cognitive Dissonance

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As we try to define what is to become the “new normal,” it is likely that many of us will rationalize our conscious decisions based on two conflicting beliefs and impulses.

In this show seasonal items such as beach chairs, umbrellas, and moving blankets mark our dependence on disposable foreign goods, and yet we justify our purchases as good for the national economy.

The surreal juxtaposition of these incongruous materials brings into question materiality and meaning, association and memory, and allusions where the viewer is transfixed, fraught in a moment of simultaneous attraction and repulsion.

Richard Gilles – HOUSE II

What does a house symbolize and what symbolizes a house.

When asked to draw a house a child will most often draw a rectangle with an isosceles triangle on top. After adding a door and a window or two you have the standard drawing of a house. This rudimentary shape has become a universal symbol of a house. With computers this symbol has become simplified even more to become an icon. The “home” icon is used to return the user to the start, to back the user out of complexity and return the user to a place of relative safety.

Roma Devanbu – Stone Doily, New Cut Paper Work

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Most of us remember using scissors to cut snowflakes from folded paper. Roma Devanbu’s cut paper work has its roots in the traditions of the homemade. The larger works in Devanbu’s current show, “Stone Doily”, take direct inspiration from her own great-grandmother’s quilts, painted china and tatted doilies. The exhibition also includes a number of smaller pieces depicting domestic furnishings and imaginary friends.