POETIC GESTURES

FEB 9 - MARCH 10, 2024

Artists: Julia Elsas, Kathie Halfin, Cody Healey-Conelly, Barbara Owen, Margaret Roleke, Susan Scott, Kurt Steger and Elissa-Levy

Immersed in a world of brushstroke, color, and form, you are invited to transcend the boundaries of language into a symphony of emotion. 

In “Poetic Gestures” the poetry of visual expression takes center stage. 

Each artwork in this exhibition demonstrates the artist’s ability to reveal themselves emotionally in the smallest of details - delicate strokes of paint, organic assemblages, layering of data, or gestures to imagined structures. There, over and over, the viewer can feel the pulse of the creator resonating in harmony with the essence of the subject matter. 

From Healey-Connely’s digital images, which flash in rhythmic patterns and compose emotional tapestries of life, to the juxtaposition of light and shadow in Halfin’s woven textures, the group of artists featured in “Poetic Gestures” are diverse in their mediums but related in their deliberate and masterful use of negative space to create a visual poetry where the vast and inexhaustible universe can be felt vibrating within the minutia. 

Barbara Owen’s object-paintings explore depth of field: her layers of color seem to float as each panel dances in relation to the others. Rooted in nature and spare in form, Kurt Steger’s dynamic sculptures feature balance as a central element. Susan Scott’s constructed paintings expand upon the traditions of abstract painting by developing narrative relationships between materials. Julia Elsas sonic sculptures, inspired by ancient indigenous ceramic water whistles, flutes, and horns, explore the sonic potential of clay. Elissa Levy’s printed textiles intertwine newspaper text and abstracted floral imagery as they drape and flow in space weaving truth and fiction into refurbished her-stories.