Artists Talk with Amy Turnbull and Noah Alexander Isaac Stein: Sunday, January 21, 2pm
Artist Talk and Collage Party with Hannah Theiss: Thursday, January 25, 7pm
JAN. 3 - 27 • MAIN GALLERY
New Members Show
— Noah Alexander Isaac Stein and Amy Turnbull —
Noah Alexander Isaac Stein — Jupiter and Semele, 2023, oil and wax on panel, 24" x 18"
Out of Tension, Light!
— Noah Alexander Isaac Stein —
The intent of Noah Stein’s art is to provoke and transmit experiences of transcendence through encounters with the “untamable expanse of reality.” The artist tackles this formidable project by creating tensions of light and dark, materiality and spirit, frenzy and control in his images. “The experience of universality is the aim of my art, which seeks to approach the transcendent through both process and subject.” he notes.
Jupiter and Semele, a striking abstraction, is an apt example. This image captures the emotive fire of the creative process and points to the union of the divine and the earthly, the metaphorical meaning of the Jupiter and Semele myth. In its composition, the image references the 1895 painting of the same name by the French Symbolist painter, Gustave Moreau.
Stein’s work, in his first outing at Blackfish, captures the drama and emotion of a questing, spiritual life.
Amy Turnbull — Wavering Impressions, 2023, oil on canvas, 36" x 48"
Wavering Impressions
— Amy Turnbull —
Painter Amy Turnbull draws on neurology and psychology to understand how we perceive and process visual information. Her work explores complexities of visual perception in our digital age, a time of “Wavering Impressions,” a phrase Turnbull takes as the title of the suite of paintings she presents this month. “Our eyes take in intricate arrays, and our brains use pre-existing schema to direct how we see,” she notes. “The self is viewed through a flexing mirror.”
Combining these observations with self-portraiture, Turnbull creates a wholly original language to depict our efforts to create order and connection from ocular flow.
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GALLERY 2
Hannah Theiss — Compartments I, 2023, mixed media, 12" x 12" x 4.5"
Aphelion
— Hannah Theiss —
Aphelion, a concept drawn from astronomy, signifies the farthest point in an orbit—a place of intense darkness. At this apex of orbit, a directional shift occurs. In Theiss’ metaphorical imaginings, the shift enables a realization, a reckoning, an acceptance and the nascent phase of returning to a once-abandoned self.
In her intensely personal debut solo exhibition, Theiss delves into the psychological awakening that stems from a lifetime of fragmenting her essential self for safety, acceptance, and affection.
Through exploration of distortion, texture, layering, and by playing with perception, these elegant, inventive pieces capture the physical sensations of trauma and dissociation. They invite you to witness and experience the raw unfolding of emotions and the intricate process of reassembly.
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Joseph Gallivan from Art Focus interviewed Hannah Theiss to discuss her current show, Aphelion.
Click here to listen to their chat: ArtFocus
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JAMES HIBBARD GALLERY
Chris Steinken — Engine 492, 2020, oil on board, 24" x 18"
What We Abandon
— Chris Steinken —
Carcasses decay; apples go bad; dead trees rot; machines rust. All these terms for entropy are negative, notes painter Chris Steinken, “but entropy is essential to nature and can be a beautiful and sustaining process.”
Among the countless objects and beings in nature that succumb to entropy, Steinken has chosen the locomotive as his focus of study. Impressive, human-made machines, the workhorses of a bygone era, locomotives once inspired awe and are closely linked to the expansion of the West in America’s history.
Meticulously rendered, full of life and tenderness, Steinken’s work captures these great machines at a moment where they are still recognizable, but show unmistakable signs of transforming into something completely new. In documenting the process of decay, Steinken’s images project wisdom and optimism, as they point the way towards regeneration.
Noah Alexander Isaac Stein
Amy Turnbull
Hannah Theiss
Chris Steinken
Blackfishers Doing Cool Stuff
See what Blackfish Artists are involved with outside the gallery this month.