Skimption

One of the most exciting aspects of contemporary art-making is being able to work outside of the fixed contexts of our traditional art dialogue. Each artist in “Skimption” defies all the usual qualifiers: “painter,” “sculptor,” “fiber artist,” “ceramicist.” Even the term “multidiscipline artist” fails to accurately describe the way in which these artists' unique conceptual goals fluctuate amongst scope, media and process. And while Diana Gabriel, Emily Hermant, Luis Sahagun, Catherine Schwalbe and Rusty Shackleford can't be easily denominated, each of their voices is unquestionably well defined.

In this exhibition, curated by artist and art critic Robin Dluzen, the grey areas between established genres are explored by these five emerging artists. Gabriel and Hermant each present site-specific works, with Gabriel's linear-patterned, fiber installation bringing drawing into three dimensional space, and Hermant's hand-rendered “wallpaper” challenging the distinction between slow handmade processes and fast-paced digital communication. Sahagun intermingles “high art” materials with the “low” stuff of everyday life with a series of floor and wall pieces that embody both permanence and ephemera. For Schwalbe, an intimate, ceramics studio practice is a catalyst for her large-scale social practice, here manifested in an indoor garden of edible greens for viewers to harvest. Shackleford's series of works are neither paintings, photographs nor typical collages, in an innovative gestural painting and digital scanning process that's unlike anything else.