Dear Viewer,
A state of repair is not a bad place to be. In fact, to reach a state of repair implies there is hope that the worst may be over and that new possibilities might be on the horizon. But only from an outsider’s perspective does a state of repair appear this way, and unfortunately not a single one of us can say we currently stand on the outside of a situation in desperate need of repair. At this very moment in time, it seems necessary to dismantle the optimistic illusion of what it means to exist in a broken state and instead turn to picking up its pieces.
Over 30 international artists have shared work in this exhibition which speaks to our present state of repair. The artwork featured here touches on all forms of healing, restoration, and reconstruction. There are projects which explore transformation and transition, pieces which speak to collective potential in fixing broken systems, and works which undergo repairs and remodels themselves. We hope that visually, this exhibition is anything but what you might expect. States of repair exist in many forms and perhaps we all see this current global one a little differently. Perhaps that’s not at all a bad thing.
We hope you enjoy this exhibition and take some time to embrace brokenness. Spend some time in this particular State of Repair and you’ll find that unexpected possibilities are more than abundant everywhere brokenness presents itself.
Enjoy the show!
–S
Beyond the Exhibition:
The inspiration behind this exhibition didn’t come out of nowhere. Plenty of places in the world could use our help and kindness in their progress towards healing and repairing. Below you will find just a few issues and organizations to consider donating or assisting if your feel so inclined after browsing the exhibition!
Alexandra Iosub
Idaho
October 2020
Mixed Media on Mounted Paper, 35″x26″
2020 was a year of self-portraits for me, documenting the different stages of grief and renewal triggered by the inopportune and yet serendipitous conflagration of internal growth processes and external national and international stressors. The creative process is faithful to the internal message: the piece is built rather than grown, with an old drawing mounted on plywood and newer woodcut prints recontextualized and layered to act as mark instead of image around a fresh drawing. A body in itself, with a hard underlayer, time element, and flexible, deeply lined, skin. A plain but still useful foundation given a new façade to reflect the times, quite literally.
Andi Arnovitz
Jerusalem, Israel
The King’s Daughter
paper, film fabric, watercolor and light box
This is from a series on the body: how it defends itself, heals, fights off disease. How the inner workings of even a body which is ill, are beautiful. Covid has made us so aware of our bodies, has made us afraid of what we cannot see. These investigations are purely imaginative, but also hopeful, that what lies below the surface is doing whatever it is supposed to.
Martim Dinis
Lisbon, Portugal
Equal Dignity
Acrylic on canvas / 90×90 cm
My pictorial research is influenced by my search for sexual identity and intimacy. Although we live in a post-Stonewall society, largely clarified by Foucault and Butler, we still live in a heteronormative and moralistic society, which manifests itself in the way we live and tolerate other sexualities
In my artistic work, I try to expose this repression, through the identification and representation of key moments of repression and sexual expression, using my personal archive.
Thus, the creation of new images works contributes to change and foster new attitudes towards other sexual identities, and as a way to “trivialize” and value moments of queer eroticism and intimacy – towards a new reality. The artwork I am submitting depicts the first page of newspaper The New York Times (27June2015), a day that gave hope but failed to accomplish eradicating the indignity of so many of us go through everyday. So the work of repair and reshaping our society continues, step by step.
Ofer Grunwald
1.Bygones 2. Composed
Ceramic bisqueware, dimensions variable
How much do the things we let go of continue to shape and define us, when in reality we have only let go of pieces of ourselves?
Composed is a series of figurative portraits, where each sculpture is painstakingly disassembled, subjected to the random effects of ceramic firing, and then painstakingly reassembled.
The random changes that occur when firing each piece make its complete and perfect restoration impossible. In some cases, the damage that occurs during firing is too extensive, and other modes of reassembly must be pursued.
The resulting sculptures thus seem to be in a constant state of flux between what they were, what they have lost, what they have gained, and what they have become.
Amadi Greenstein
California
Forever Young
Textile, Mixed Media/ 25″W x 41″H
This piece commemorates both the artist’s mother and grandfather. The original photograph represented in this work was captured by her grandfather. This image is a portrait of Amadi’s mother at the age of about 16 or 17, and is the muse for the entire piece. The overall color story is reflected directly from the original photograph, using physical features of her mother, such as skin tone, hair color, and eye color. Amadi invites the concepts of remembrance and healing, along with her ideas of pixelated memory in this woven image. With the use of transparency film and color brings a ghostly presence to the work. This piece was created to honor the 5th year anniversary of her mother’s passing, while also keeping the existence of her mother’s innocence remembered.
Sarah Valeri
Brooklyn, NY
1.We Insist On Being Here 2. The Things I’m Missing 3. I Came So Far To Find You
2020, oil on yupo, 60″ x 65″
Nature is a constant spectrum of life and death, ash and seedling. Repair, may be a hopeful term, as there may be no true state of perfect health. Something is always decomposing. Always something is being missed. And through points of breakage new beginnings come.
Many of my recent paintings come from a carried memory of some place I have been. When I hold the memory I can never be sure that it still relates to the place where I stood. Perhaps something there has changed, or I have deftly recreated it for my own purpose. My hopes and recognition of reality may intersect into some new thing. In the images here are stories of love and loss, spaces where the air has overtaken the ground, hopefully leaving room for potential.
Juliana Naufel
Brazil
Blurry
Embroidery on Photograph
By stitching new stories on long lost forgotten photographs, Naufel found her voice and discovered how to use her own power to overcome trauma and take better care of herself. The artist is passionate about things that take strength from their own fragility; the understanding that what society usually considers fragile is in fact the quite opposite intrigues her. Embroidering photographs might seem subtle and delicate, however, it is a powerful healing practice. Juliana is reclaiming artifacts of someone’s history and someone’s memories when she is poking holes and suturing them, almost like fixing these moments and weaving the past into the future by making it’s present. Embroidering these photographs, she’s giving space not only to heal herself, but also to heal the ones who came before and the ones that are still here.
Khanjan Maru Soni
Sharjah / UAE
Every Winter is replaced by Spring!
Paper cutting / 16.5″ x 11.5″
The darkness around us sometimes seems all-enveloping, harrowing to the extent of defeat, One tough door finally broken down seems to lead to a thousand other shut doors – until finally the glory of emerging from the ashes, scarred by the trauma but unscathed in spirit, leaves you actually even more resilient!
Sally de Courcy
Woking, UK
Evolution.
Jesmonite, marble resin, calico, bronze. 170cm H x 70cm W x 70cm D
Evolution developed by deconstructing a repeated abstract form that was then recombined to make a slowly evolving arrangement. It exploits abstract repetition to magnify the repetition of imperfection creating a physical evolution. When the deconstructed units are repaired and combined together a whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts producing a new organic almost coral like structure from inorganic materials.
Kenneth A. Kinsley
Los Angeles
You Will Anyway
Acrylic and collage on reclaimed panel from construction/19” x 25” x 3”
With its tattered flag flying defiantly in the breeze on a backing culled from a remodel, this work is a conversation with that sometimes self-defeating, sometimes competitive and striving part within each of us. There is always struggle, but whether you give up or fight the good fight, there’s always one last loss waiting for you.
Stefan Doru Moscu
Romania
I’ll use you as a focal point
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 150 cm
As an artist I have always been interested in special textures like an object degraded, decaying, rusting or corroded in time, and that is why I am painting with broad brushstrokes of blues, grays, browns and greens and their complex structure offer a contemporary vision of major political narratives and such fundamental, universal topics as the abuse of power, exploitation and oppression, and also of a personal, individual human struggle and takes a critical view of social, political and cultural issues. In my paintings color assumes extreme importance, suggesting a somber mood, as furtive and enigmatic. In my research I intend to deconstruct the normal reality, fairy tales, old photo that are parts of our childhood and adult culture and I like to create a discourse that challenge the existing political, economical, social and technological paradigms
Hanna Newman
Atlanta, GA
1. Me and You (together) 2. Me and You (alone) 3. Me and You (in bed in the morning)
resin, 4’x2’x1′
My sculptural compositions are made up of fragmentations of the human form. Inspired by my ongoing experiences with sleep disorders, primarily sleep paralysis, I examine my mental well-being through the meeting of my sleeping self and my wakeful and the relationship between the two. This liminal space is a place in which I situate my figurative sculptures. They exist as I do, in an in-between state as objects that are not fully present yet not fully absent. I’m interested in the ability that psychological distress can be communicated through fragmentations of the body as well as what is communicated in the absence of the body. This particular series of works titled, “Me and You”, examines my relationship with myself through situation these figurative fragments within my apartment.
Irina Novikova
Belarus, Minsk
Lost hearts .. Don’t lose
40х30
A small text about the works: “About love or hate, about something that hurts or once hurt .. Perhaps it will stop hurting … It’s like a story of the past two hearts and a single thread …
Francesca Alaimo
London, UK
Her Wounds Become Him
Mixed media on paper print 85×122 cm
I am a self-taught mixed media artist based in London. I create interventions on paper through manipulation and transformation of materials and images, using prints, water based oils, acrylics and wax. I explore visibility, vulnerability and courage within the context of gender, sex, sexuality and identity politics. Part of my artistic practice is to undo what I have painted, mirroring the act of deconstructing our certainties and exposing our inconsistencies. Referencing the struggle with our core wounds and the process of healing that begins when we allow them to surface, “Her Wounds Become Him” represents the strength, pain and determination we invest in that struggle. On the path of gender questioning and identity searching wounds are inevitable and perhaps desirable. In fact, by healing those wounds we can unravel and confront that deep layer of fear, shame and guilt that we need to overcome to be truly seen by others.
Samantha Peake
Cardiff, UK
Touching the Untouched Space
508mm x 280mm
During lockdown, I have been deeply interested in my current environment, the home. Specifically the discarded and neglected spaces of the home. Within this performance work, I go through the process of removal, cleansing and repairing of the space, my body adapts to the physicality of the structure in order to achieve the process of habitation. This act of care and appreciation becomes an act of revival for the space.
Mathieu V. Staelens
Antwerp
Autopsy to localise and separate the symbolist forces of the English rose.
9,8x8cm
The submitted work with the cut up rose is part of a series (audits of destruction) that shows the narrative of scientific examination of flowers, fruits and plants that contain symbolism of love and sex. In order to separate that symbolism as an entity on its own.
Khushbakht Islam
Karachi, Pakistan
Fire
40 cm x 40 cm
The question that comes up in any debate around bad touch or abuse is: how do we get the various levels of our society to talk more openly about this? To me, art connects everyone — no matter where they come from. And if the trauma suffered by a mind or a body or a soul can find expression anywhere, it is by art — spoken, written or drawn.
Jolanda de Ridder
Utrecht, The Netherlands
2021-08
recycled cardboard and paper, paint 38x30x4 cm
My work is constructed from recycled cardboard and paper and I disassemble and reshape a lot of it. Sometimes the original cardboard construction shows through the finished artwork, but just as often it is unrecognisable. When working with cardboard and paper many things can go wrong. For instance pieces get warped and paper won’t dry up neatly because of the water in the glue and paint. I have decided not to fight it and just accept it for what it is. It is in the nature of the materials and therefore in the nature of my art. It is never going to be perfect. It’s a different story when people accidentally damage my work. If the work gets dirty, often a good clean and a few new coats of paint will suffice, but when it gets dented, far more work is needed. I tend to get rid of the dirt, but the dents, unless really severe, seem to add to the charm so they may stay. And as I wrote before, my art will never be perfect.
Gabriela Delcin Pires
Brazil
Time time time How do I relate to you?
The future fell apart and what did you do?
The past undid you while it undid
Do you fade or redo yourself?
Time destroys you
Time builds you up
Do you say goodbye or make up?
Time time time How do I relate to you? The three photos are part of the series, how long do I relate to you? each of the photos represents a part of the text. It addresses how we deal with time, whether we let it recover or destroy us depending on the relationship we have with it.
Ronit Keret
Israel
Tears/After All
Styrofoam, dimension variable
Ronit Keret, Born in Jerusalem, Lives and works in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Graduated from Hamidrasha Beit-Berl College of Art (2005-2009) and has a MA in Arts Education, at Leeds University, England (1998-2001). For over 15 years, her works has addressed the problems of air pollution, environmental quality and fear of the Earth’s impending extinction. In recent years, Keret, which is a multidisciplinary artist, is mainly engaged in site specific installations and video-art. Her work deals with the ecological crisis, such as the melting glaciers that have been changing due to the nature of human activity that abuse earth’s natural resources. from the other hand the crisis of drought and fires, and luck of drinking water, and their influence on the agricultural industry and on humanity. The nature of the material used varies and Keret focuses on industrial waste such as packaging (Styrofoam, cardboard etc) and other industrial compounds. In her works, Keret describes the transitions between good and evil in looking at human and nature relations and the gap between childhood dreams and catastrophic reality.
Lucija Marin
Zagreb, Croatia
Introspection
ready-made, 3x 32x32x1 cm
“Introspection” is a triptych created out of 168 makeup pads that I used and collected for almost a year. The pads bear traces of makeup remover, makeup, and traces of my own skin – a proof of existence. For me, the process of applying and removing the makeup is another way of getting to know myself, a form of experimentation and self-expression. But it can be interpreted in so many other ways if we take into account socially conditioned norms and expectations about a woman’s appearance. I am interested in bringing the consciousness of accepting these social expectations about what a woman should look like, how we should “repair” ourselves, but also how we can reject it.
Christina Massey
Brooklyn, NY, USA
1.Together Apart 2. Flame Meditation 3. Feeling Unheard
acrylic on canvas, woven, mounted on paper
This series of woven paintings began during the Recession in 2009/10. They were created by tearing apart my past artworks and mending them together again into a woven form. When the pandemic hit I was compelled to readdress this series, creating a new body of work using those woven paintings as the base. Each addressed the various aspects of the year, from the political unrest, fires in California that turned the skies orange, to the feelings of isolation due to the social distancing. Each has been painted over and reworked from it’s original woven form, which itself was a mending from the past and uncertainty of that era as well.
Carolina Saidenberg
São Paulo, Brazil
Fragmented Woman
Mixed technique on Fabriano paper, 40x5cm
During the year of 2020, I´ve participated of 2 art residencies about pandemic times. In these 2 opportunities I could develop a series of artworks related to the feeling of being destructed and reconstructed by self.
Melitta Nemeth
London, UK
From the Ashes
60 x 80 cm
I place female figures in the center of my inquiry. I want to explore the role of the female gaze in the depiction of women. My research employs painting to examine and recreate photographic images from diverse sources. It is a constant dialogue between painting and photography. In this painting, ’From the Ashes’, I explore the process of self-healing and rebirth. I utilized a photo of a woman practising kung fu fight moves. The painting was originally telling a story about female power. However, during the painting process I noticed how similar the female figure became to a bird spreading its wings. Since the body had a great amount of red in it, my association was fire, burning and phoenix. Phoenix is a mythical bird that obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. While trying to interpret my own picture I tought of how women are able to heal themselves and get reborn after difficult periods in life. The process of painting as well became a really healing activity.
Sadie Robison
Richmond, California
Ice lamp
found glass, found ceramic, candy, copper foil, solder, LED lights, fiber optic cable /
I cut a sheet of glass in my studio without realizing it was tempered glass, the kind windshields are made out of that shatters into a thousand tiny bits when broken. Instead of shaping the glass the way I’d intended I covered my studio in little glass shards. The scene evoked the asphalt next to a car that’s been broken into, yet the pieces were so pretty when swept into a pile. By changing their context, inserting them into a glass reliquary, I removed the glass’s connection to a scene of destruction/desperation and their ability to illicit tactile fear of laceration. The shards can be safe and beautiful, their dissolution honored. Furthermore I realized they made an effective luminous medium through which to diffuse light so I inserted glowing LED’s into the piece. The lamp is durational. The batteries that power the lights will die eventually and cannot be replaced adding an additional layer of entropy to the piece.
Hannah Lane
Olathe, Kansas
Disintegration: Cavaliere
Light molding paste on canvas. 4’x1′.
How does technology affect our lives and how does it change our perceived reality? The Disintegration series is a direct but abstract reference to how technology affects us. By combining disintegrating infrastructure with colors that come from social media, news, movies and games; I question how technology and this digital realm that we interact with change our realities and what we believe them to be. The Disintegration series came from the idea of potholes more specifically. Potholes are a piece of crumbling infrastructure in a modern society that most of us are oblivious to unless we walk past them, drive around or sometimes bump into them while driving. We blindly use technology and the digital realm without hesitation or thought until that system fails. Lost internet connection, the blue screen of death, even the controversial issue of privacy and censorship with big tech companies are all situations that bring the consumer back to reality. By combining these two elements that usually most are unaware of, helps to create a dystopian space.
Teuta Pashnjari
Tampere, Finland
Delicate
34x50cm mixed media
Delicate is a series that portrays black and white photographs blended playfully in a self-created colorful environment. The drawings are inspired by the global events of the last two years that brought the need and desire to create fictional worlds through painting and drawing. The need to mentally escape a black and white reality and live carefree in the radiant fictional milieu of my own imagination is more necessary than ever.
Sharard “X”
Tallahassee, FL
Black Beau Ideal Street
20×24 Canvas + Acrylic Paint
This piece features the classic times of 1921 forwarded to the current times of 2021 emphasizing Black ownership, The original Black Wall Street of Tulsa, and Black Folq having a good time. Showing glances of Atlanta, Charlotte, and Philadelphia and the blackownership within the bustling cities, below that is the bottom half of Africa engulfed by a modern day Black wall street and an artist painting a painting in the street. The final row is Black people doing what we do better than the rest and that’s have a good ol time. This piece exudes areas and states where success has been made and where repair is needed.
* This piece was selected to be featured on the third edition of the board game Play Black Wall Street an Essence magazine recognized board game.
Alberto Dalla Valle
Italy
Antivirus
Oil on paper – 20×30 cm
State of repair – alternative methods.
Sophie Bosselut
Switzerland
ECG ( Electrocardiogram)
13×18 cm
Sophie Bosselut is a French visual artist who lives in Switzerland. She graduated form National School of Applied Arts of Paris (ENSAD). Her work takes root in the field of expressionism abstract : coloured by fantasy, in a poetic and organic world where biology and micro universe are always in transformation. This ECG Series is about in a completly asphyxied world à message to learn again to breath and make a circulation between oppression, trauma, anxiety and HOPE. Like a lyrism in a decade world, a resilient way to repair our fears. They are made from real ECG who permit to listening the sound of our hearts, of our world in this crucial period based on phobic behaviors. This is a work about our need to repair our pains and sadness. The abstract colored language here permit to evacuate with a kind of humour and joy the anxiety inside all of us.
Margarida Almeida
Portugal
Mountain
Acrylics on paper; 18,3 x 25,2 cm
These works are part of a 2020 July series called “Mountain” and they were made through collage, that is very present in my overall body of work. I like using collage because it reminds me of nature and the transformative cycles of life. The collage itself is also a result of several transformations – the fragments that form the composition had a life of its own, and once dead, they are combined and arranged into another life. So, in a way, collage reflects my experience towards the world – everything changes, everything evolves and it can lead to something beautiful.
Incredible Show! An eclectic assembly of finely executed works that speak to the them of our moment in time from a myriad of perspective. Thanks to the curators at vacant for bringing this impressive show to our interested eyes.
Wonderful, wonderful collection ~ I saw a “State of Repair” in all of them and each of them was most compelling. I especially liked the work of Irina Novikova as well as the work of Alexandra Iosub, Andi Arnovitz, Amadi Greenstein, Sari Valeri, Khanjan Maru Soni, Sally de Courcy, Ronit Keret, Lucija Marin, and Christina Massey. Very well put together. Am sharing the link to this show. Congratulations to everyone.