Spring Dream is a group show that shifts viewers’ perspectives through illusory realms. Bringing together five artists each working in different media, this show invites audiences to inhabit the subconscious sphere, both personal and collective.
“I am most interested in the perceptions we collectively share through the telling of narratives which capture attention and compel deep felt meaning,”
Josh Clark is a ceramic sculptor whose work in this show melds craft and technology. Having grown weary of the art world’s trend towards deconstruction, subversion, dismantling and the reduction of ‘art’ to ‘concept,’ Clark hopes his own work can instead “charm, enchant, enrich, and delight those who experience them through focusing on beauty, play, attention, and narrative during their construction.” His own construction process involved play and experimentation, as he worked with two methods that are new to him: using a ceramic 3D printer to generate forms and hand painting on their surface. “There is a constant effort in the work to pair processes which remove the hand of the maker with processes which emphasize the hand of the maker,” Clark says. His imagery references his research into medieval tapestry, and he calls the impetus behind them “the pursuit to unite opposites.” Many of the representational forms in the work are made from molds, and Clark sourced the objects used to create the molds from antique and secondhand shops. “I like these objects because they are at once an object that was cast aside, but also preserved,” Clark says. “When I make the mold, the original object is typically sacrificed, but is translated to a more permanent material.” His work invites viewers to participate in their own imagined narrative: “I am most interested in the perceptions we collectively share through the telling of narratives which capture attention and compel deep felt meaning,” Clark says. He believes incorporating art into everyday living spaces “has no choice but to influence how those individuals approach the outside world.”
Michael McGrath studied fine art in college, but the Hudson Valley-based artist largely eschews tradition in his own practice. Moving between drawing and painting, he often works in pencil and colored pencils, soft pastels, acrylic and oil paints. He also incorporates collage work and occasionally experiments with sculpture and fabrication. “I don't consistently adhere to conventional rules or strive for flawless mark-making,” McGrath says. His eclectic process and unconventional style creates an atmosphere of childlike liminality. Still, he says his work’s childlike quality is partially borne of impatience with traditional techniques. He prefers to “embrace a more spontaneous method, allowing creative energy to flow without being overly concerned about perfection or strictly following usual best practices.” His themes usually trace back to a memory of his own childhood, or his children's current experiences. “Whether consciously or unconsciously,” McGrath says, “I often link it to specific childhood fears, past religious influences, or routine, everyday activities. I enjoy taking dark subject matter and giving it a spin, transforming it into something that doesn't feel as heavy or somber.”
“I often link it to specific childhood fears, past religious influences, or routine, everyday activities. I enjoy taking dark subject matter and giving it a spin, transforming it into something that doesn't feel as heavy or somber.”
“I think of the paintings as offerings to my viewers which function as an invitation into this space,” Ortiz says. Her paintings in this show feature the biznaga cactus; a giant barrel cactus indigenous to the state of Oaxaca that was once consumed as a delicacy before being deemed endangered: “Ancient and often irregular, the biznaga embodies a slowing of time; a central theme in my work,”
Anna Ortiz is a Brooklyn-based painter whose luminous landscapes center her Mexican-American identity. “[Landscape] is a means to build a world of my own somewhere between memory and imagination,” Ortiz says. By referencing places she’s visited in Mexico, she constructs landmarks to orient viewers in this “world between worlds.” “I think of the paintings as offerings to my viewers which function as an invitation into this space,” Ortiz says. Her paintings in this show feature the biznaga cactus; a giant barrel cactus indigenous to the state of Oaxaca that was once consumed as a delicacy before being deemed endangered: “Ancient and often irregular, the biznaga embodies a slowing of time; a central theme in my work,” Ortiz says.
There are also two paintings that reference Aztec mythology. One depicts Tezcatlipoca, the ancient god of obsidian mirrors and one of the oldest gods in the Aztec cannon, “full of mystery and magic.” The other portrays a hovering pink disk in the sky over dimly lit cacti. The disk shows an image of Coyolxauhqui, the dismembered moon goddess. Ortiz sees these paintings as invitations for contemporary audiences to recontextualize the stories of those gods. Her work also holds space for viewers to contemplate their own notions of identity, whether personal or collective. In an era of social reckoning and re-education, Ortiz views identity as a central lens through which we experience the world. “Many second generation Americans feel dislocated from their parents’ heritage while simultaneously feeling othered by American ‘norms,’” she says. Her work incites viewers to explore that ambiguity in her invented borderland, and asks them to “consider the human impulse to traverse an unknown world.”
Oliver Polzinis a Santa Fe-based painter whose work is devoted to the more-than-human world, “embroidering the edge between realism and non-representational work.” He creates radiant landscapes in gouache on clayboard, a medium he fell in love with for its mystery and versatility. He thinks of these mostly vertically-oriented pieces as “portraits of landscapes,” implying the personhood of forests or glades. His art evokes a scientific element, building on the work of researchers like Canadian ecologist Dr. Suzanne Simard who coined the term “Wood Wide Web” to describe the mycelial network that connects all plants through the roots. “I want to convey the personhood of fungi,” Polzin says. While his landscape work is aesthetically reminiscent of Romanticism, Polzin sees his work as philosophically distinct. While the Romantics created totalizing visions that imposed a sense of dominion, his own work conjures “partial visions,” Polzin says. “I am compelled by views that look down or even under the ground—the intricate micro-ecology of the forest floor with a human hand intertwined, or an underground scene of animate mycelium acting out mythic stories.”His human subjects interact tenderly with the more-than-human world, rather than being in positions of dominion over it. “I reject the sense of ownership—or worse, settler-logic—portrayed in Romanticist paintings,” Polzin says.
His work bids viewers to consider the natural world through narrative: “I offer a path to finding empathy for fungi, new knowledge of soil, and a reminder to sink into your senses and see who else is here,” Polzin says.
“I am compelled by views that look down or even under the ground—the intricate micro-ecology of the forest floor with a human hand intertwined, or an underground scene of animate mycelium acting out mythic stories.”
“My work is often rooted in looking back and seeking to resolve a feeling of loss, or reassembling a memory, or translating an emotion attached to a moment in time through color, shape and form,”
Madeleine Tonzi is a Los Angeles-based artist whose paintings explore memory, landscape, change, contradiction and the ephemeral quality of time. Her style and techniques evolved out of her earlier screen printing practice, a medium she’s drawn to for its graphic quality and rich, bold color. When she no longer had access to a screen printing studio, she began to incorporate these characteristics into her painting. Tonzi grew up in New Mexico and moved around California for two decades before settling in Los Angeles. These migrations cemented her obsession with the concept of place. For her, being away from “home” is a means for contrast and comparison borne out of a sense of longing. “My work is often rooted in looking back and seeking to resolve a feeling of loss, or reassembling a memory, or translating an emotion attached to a moment in time through color, shape and form,” Tonzi says. Much of her work over the past decade looks through the lens of solastalgia, a term describing “the sense of loss we as a collective are experiencing due to climate catastrophe, industrial extraction and natural disaster,” Tonzi says. To her, it’s a way of naming the feeling of loss and longing for stabilizing landmarks. Her work is a means by which to process events like catastrophic fires in Northern California, providing a serene space in which to reflect on what we have, and what we could lose, Tonzi says: “It’s a meditation and a way to honor an ever changing landscape.”
Spring Dream will open at Hecho a Mano on Friday, March 1 and will be on view until April 1.