Zodiac Ballet is a group exhibition featuring works by Kent Anderson Butler, Joseph Cardenas, Alex Couwenberg, Austin Howland, Keanna Ide, Melissa Thorne, Etchi Werner-Nyiri and Jessica Wimbley.
Group exhibitions may be anchored by a visual concept or narrative theme, related to a sense of place or identity, or centered around artists’ processes and studio practices. Curation methodology often strives to introduce a meaningful conversation with multiple viewpoints and to present a dynamic exchange with a careful mixture of creations. By presenting artworks that resonate with elemental energies, Zodiac Ballet invites viewers to consider the gallery as a choreographed environment of sensations and ideas.
Two photographs by Kent Anderson Butler and triptych painting by Joseph Cardenas relate to water in different ways. Initially viewed as abstract color fields, Anderson Butler’s photographs depict hands reaching to the surface while submerged underwater.
Cardenas’s geometrically designed compositions channel fluid color and link flowing spectrums.
Works by Alex Couwenberg and Austin Howland flirt with fire. The tops of Howland’s vertically standing sculptures are adorned with translucent colored plastic that seem to glow like sci-fi candles, while the pristinely smooth white surface of Couwenberg’s abstract painting is interrupted by concave fissures that reveal the fiery red color of a molten interior.
Keanna Ide and Melissa Thorne use realist painting approaches to reference the invisible air that surrounds us. Thorne’s actual size rendering of an ornate bedspread pattern appears weightless as it is suspended on a creamy white field. Ide’s approach to abstraction incorporates landscape painting techniques that create a layered space where shapes and colors float and sway in a breezy atmosphere.
Mixed media pieced by Etchi Werner-Nyiri and Jessica Wimbley incorporate figure ground relationships that present earth as both a physical location and a pictorial structure. Werner-Nyiri’s large scale imaginary landscape installation invites viewers to explore and discover. Wimbley balances multiple layers of imagery to investigate notions of identity and self awareness.