An Evolving Exhibition
Dear Viewer,
Welcome to While We Wait, the art exhibition that is also a growing garden! Only one aspect of this show remains static throughout; our intentions to slow down, practice a little patience, and let creativity run free while we wait for the world to reopen. The works in this exhibition will be released in this gallery in three parts, each time under a new theme built based off the previous installment of this show.
– S
No matter when we reach the stage of full bloom, the satisfaction of reaching the end will come with a sense of freedom to appreciate and never again take for granted. Now that we have arrived at While We Wait Part 3: Full Bloom, the final installment of our evolving exhibition and our garden of art, we can finally feel the freedom of no longer waiting, expecting, or pondering. Here we have the choice of whether to look back and learn, or move forward and embrace the unknown. But most of all, we can be reminded of how fleeting even the fullest of blooms can be. Like the rush of air inhaled during a sigh of relief upon crossing a finish line, spring and the seasons of blossoming are only temporary and never to be wasted.
Merita Seitz
Ludwigsburg
Yin & Yang
Acrylic on canvas 100x100x2
Consciousness. It’s time to dance with life, go in different directions, move barriers, discover other worlds, jump over all walls.
Bewustsein.
Es ist Zeit, mit dem Leben zu tanzen, in verschiedene Richtungen zu gehen, Barrieren zu bewegen, andere Welten zu entdecken, über alle Mauern zu springen.
Gabriela Delcin Pires
If each one blooms in its own time, it is spring all year round
If each one blooms in its own time, it is spring all year round. The work registers through photography the artist Sabrina Lermen in the acrobatic fabric. The work makes reference to the human process of flowering, placing as individuals that flower as well as flowers, however, as individuals, humans have their own seasons, and to flourish they have to respect their own time. And as a society, when we respect humans as individuals, we have people flourishing all the time, not just in the spring, because each has its own spring.
Kelsey Faith Nichols
Marengo, IL, USA
Blossoming
Digital Art
This series of digital images show an apple tree in blossom. They bring to mind the joy of life after dark times.
Anina Deetlefs
Western Cape South Africa
1.Yemoja 2. Sirens 3. Eve, that is, Life
1.127HX101WX4D 2.94Hx124Wx4D cm 3.94Hx124x Wx 4D
Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world, our inner Eden. Spend time building your inner sanctum and your outer world will flourish, like a garden that you tend to, sweetly nourishing the bulbs and seedlings day after day which become luscious, rich and beautiful flowers. Processing your feelings gives you access to your own inner wisdom and innate creativity.
Each of these works serves as a gentle reminder that we should allow ourselves to:
That we all require and should give a little bit of Grace to others each day. And above all to appreciate the Life/Eve we were given.
Mary Anne Donovan
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
GAEA’S HARVEST
Acrylic on arches, 12” x 16”
The painting is the full bloom bursting with the intensity of flowering.
Maïté
Belgium
Succulent
Collage/ A3
After obtaining my master’s degree in architecture, I explored other artistic fields, such as set design, collage, photography and everything else where I can imagine a story. From my home studio in Ghent, Belgium, I work with different materials and techniques. At the moment I focus on analogue paper collages. It is an instinctive process of selecting, cutting and organizing images, far away from the computer. I enjoy the freedom to let my mind wander. Creating people and places that exist in realms we have not yet explored.
“I am seeking to find the threshold were reality ends and dreams begin, the edge where physics dissolves into metaphysics, the border where logic yields to fantasy. When I find this threshold, I want to cross it and enter the world of imaginary- a world where it is perfectly okay to hold unrealistic expectations without being labeled a lunatic, idealistic and worse still, naïve.”
-Ogutu Muraya
Petra Schott
Frankfurt, Germany
Earth I and Earth II
140x140x4,5 and 150x125x4,5cm
These paintings are part of a cycle about the elements which are the basic substance from which all other is composed. The earth, the soil, is the ground on which we as human beings are placed. It provides shelter, nourishment, pleasure and much more. That is probably the reason why we often refer to it as “mother earth”. In these paintings I describe the abundance and wealth of nature grounding in the soil, in the earth. The roots of all the plants in the painting are not visible, but they must be strong because they create so much beauty of blossoming and greening plants. Thus, the painting describes the moment of nature reaching its cyclic climax of blossoming splendour.
Natalie Bradford
Michigan, USA
Bloom & Mini Collage29
Analog collage, colored pencil and hand sewing on Stonehenge paper, 6″ x 4″;
Memories are fleeting and inconsistent. Every time we try to recall a memory from our past, bits of that memory get lost in the retrieval, creating a ‘false’ memory. Our minds then start to create their own new narratives, or ‘memoryscapes.’ My work explores the temporality and fleetingness of those precious memories as they begin to change and fade with age.
Münira Merve Çelik
Ravenna
Hope
25×26 cm
The work has started with the idea and feeling of hope, while we are hopefully and eventually coming to the end of this uncertain, difficult and often anxious state-of-exception period. No drafts or plans have been prepared, it is aimed to stay in the very moment of flow and follow where the line goes, line as the hope itself.
Simone Christen
New Jersey, USA
shining
Acrylics / 40 x 40 in
The picture shows the magnificent energy of nature in summer. Colors and shapes are abundant and nature produces without restraint or resource conservation. It is a firework of expression of life. My paintings are calm reflections on life’s beauty and fundamental simplicity. Increasingly abstract and minimalist they offer a space to rest your eyes and linger your soul. My art intends to carry you away for a short moment of reflection and resonance. I lay my focus on motion and calmness, searching for reduction without banality. My paintings are balanced compositions, built up from deep color spaces, sensitive lines and dynamic interactions. A closer look reveals the complexity behind the simplicity of playing with universal concepts of form, mass, proportion, rhythm and structure.
Jo Roets
South Africa
1.Brachystelma Pulchellum 2. Aloiampelos Commixta 3. Kumara Plicatilis
Medium: Air-Drying Clay. Dimensions: 42cm x 31cm
We are like succulents in this time. They possess the ability to survive in the most harsh and drought stricken situations. Patiently waiting for the time when the rain arrives, to quench their thirst and bring relief. While using resources sparingly, they exist in waiting. Holding and nurturing their blooms internally, until the wait is over and they can celebrate their endurance by bursting into full bloom.
Leandra Brandson
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Siren Song
16″ x 8″ x 21″
Siren Song responds to the growing crises in our local ecosystems in relation to fisheries in Canada. The red flowers cascade upwards from the gaping maws of two fish, screaming silently towards the sky. This silent cacophony grows and swells, much like a flower, into a mournful song. The fish heads, based on two of Canada’s meat fish, the walleye and salmon, are sprayed directionally with a blue underglaze and smoke-fired using naturally sourced materials. In creating my ceramic sculptures, I seek to address the world and our place in it. With vibrant colours and textures I articulate the environment and its relationship to contemporary media in a physical form. Clay is an artistic chameleon, allowing me push and pull the persona of my subjects into physical being. The digitization of our social interactions has allowed us to curate and market the world around us to a higher degree than ever before.
Michael Palladino
Pennsylvania, USA
‘BLOSSOM‘ series
all carved and painted wood with encaustic, 16×16″
BLOOMS – on sacred scrolls, decorated altars, and ancient architecture filled with incense. Fragility and transience of life, mortality, and living in the present. The goddess of the rainbow – a stunning display welcoming spring, and beautifully scented during fifteen minutes of fame.
Rose Silberman-Gorn
Queens, NY
In Bloom
polymer clay, acrylic paint, and sculpey glaze, 3.5”x2.5”x2.25”
Throughout much of the pandemic, I’ve focused on creating small sculptures out of polymer clay. With their soft, organic shapes and adorable visages, these cartoonish figures are reminiscent of dolls, clowns, and childhood nostalgia which is often tainted by something darker. They symbolically depict emotional experiences I’ve gone through as a result of a traumatic upbringing with a narcissistic mother. My work flaunts cuteness in the face of bleakness, showcasing the resilience and strength of the human spirit in the face of trauma. This specific sculpture conveys the bittersweetness of personal growth after trauma, and how it feels to finally begin to grow into your potential after struggling under the weight of your mental health.
Serafina Harris
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Sunrise
20inx20in
The driving purpose, is a will to know; so when people describe my art as uplifting, joyful and happy, beautiful and pretty, and the best one I heard was that its like music; those feelings come from the foundation of where my art is going to go and has gone, through my life experiences and discipline to the truth, and the search of my own sense of self.
Perhaps the hardest part of waiting is the period of branching out. While broad branches might grow and extend their reach, leafier limbs might tangle, and twigs might brush up against unfamiliar territory. Branching out is the period of transition for our garden of art. It is the one most difficult to narrow down but the one most saturated in freshness and change. Here in While We Wait: Part 2 artists have interpreted the concept of Branching Out in entirely unique ways, but none has neglected personal experience nor the momentum towards the future that branching out always encompasses.
Shaharyar Naeem
Pakistan
Untitled
Medium: gauche and pen n ink on wasli (22×14)inch
The heart of my work is environmental advocacy, exposing the devastating effect of environmental pollution. The intent of my work is to raise awareness regarding the chronic situation, how it has widely spread, how it is destroying nature and causing irreversible damage to it. The work also showcases the effect on self identity. The art work has been created using mix media technique combining gauche and pointillism along with collage work
Marchelle Simms
Maine
Bilateral Lean
Mixed Media/ 11”x9”x11”
Why do we remember what we remember? Our memories make us who we are. I am interested in the complexities of our identities and why we choose to remember certain experiences, sometimes mundane happenings and how these experiences can impact our perception for the rest of our life. These experiences can be invoked by shape, form, smell, the air temperature, color, a sound, or touch. This could be a direct result of our environment or Epigenetics, cell memory. What if our perspicacity and actions are influenced by our DNA and our identities are informed from past familial generations. What if our memories are not all our own? The materials that I make or choose to use in my works have shape memory as well. This informs or pervades the forms that influence the final compositions. My exploration of the accumulation and deterioration of memories is not just a direct representation of a specific space but also a mental space. This is a trace of connecting the past into a continuing dialogue with the space involved and the viewer.
Fran Shenker
South Africa
Reprieve
Oil on linen 45 x45cm
I am intrigued by all things growing, light and the shift of light, confinement and the push for freedom. In Covid times, these leaves pressing against plastic resonated with me.
Michael Palladino
Pennsylvania, USA
‘FOREST LANDSCAPE’ series
carved and torched wood with encaustic wax inlay, each 22×22″
These are carved wooden panels, torched, with encaustic wax inlay.
Twilight in the woods. Sky and sunlight vanishing, horizontal rays through the dense woodland branches. Day creatures settle, as the nocturnal emerge. Silhouettes diminish on the horizon as daylight fades, gracefully welcoming the luminescent moon through drifting clouds.
Nicole Wassall & Inês Mourato
London and Kent, UK
Floating Narratives
Mobile made of a Silver Birch Branch, jewellery wire and Japanese Katsura woodblock. 50cm (from branch to bottom of disks) x 57cm wide x 3cm deep
Nicole Wassall: WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Inês Mourato: WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Celebrating the ‘Floating Narratives’ between masculine and feminine, this piece compares contradictory associations of the sun and moon from Australian Aboriginal to European society. The disks are printing woodblocks, hung on a silver birch branch.
The Aboriginal inspired woodblock draws on dreamtime stories depicting Wariunpranili (female) tirelessly carrying the sun to heat the earth and Ngalindi (male) who’s killed by his wives for being lazy and fat. He climbs a gum tree to escape them, turning into the moon as he dies. Each month he eats and eats until he’s a full moon and then gets skinnier as his wives throw knives at him (cutting bits of him off) until he disappears (dies) and is then re-born.
The other woodblock draws on a poem by Elizabeth Coleridge ‘In Dispraise of the Moon’. She questions the European narrative of feminine as the sickly weak moon and masculine as sun and strong. The wooden branch holds the narratives apart and opens space for opportunities to better consider gender balance. This piece is a collaboration between Nicole Wassall (Australian) and Inês Mourato (Portuguese)
Huda Hafeez
Pakistan
This pain is worth enduring
Mixed Media on on 8.5inches*12inches sheet
Pain is the root of growth. My work revolves around the idea that everything one suffers from in life blooms one to a better version. Burning or smoking the sheet as a symbol of pain and bandaging it with threads, blooming like branches is an ultimate Comment on the fact that human’s sufferings are not purposeless but it imparts new roots to help one grow better and even more beautiful.
Petra Schott
Frankfurt, Germany
Garden of longings II
100x80x2cm
My works revolves around visions, ideas and emotions in past and presence in a figurative-abstract way. I search for freedom, lightness, liveliness and intensity. My studio is a space of experiment, pleasure, frustration and new beginnings. I love to listen to music to come to that moment where intuition and creative process can start to flow. In the work submitted here I describe an inner state of longing represented by the empty chair visible in the foreground of the painting. Around this chair the beauty of new beginnings shows itself in luminous colours of red, orange, pink and red. Associations of an interior but also of an outside garden come up. In the background branches of a tree grow into the sky. For me this painting describes hope and new beginnings, in nature and in us as human beings.
Riley Davenport
San Diego, California
Standing Figure, Long Gaze
Standing Figure, oil on paper, 30″x22″, Long Gaze, oil on canvas, 49″x35″
Long Gaze captures the patient enduring of a difficult status quo and a timeless connection to the land that supports life.
Standing Figure is vibrant with erotic hot and cool while expressing the ennui that comes with inactivity and waiting. The figure is entangled and nourished by nature themes.
Jocelyn Benford
Brooklyn, NY
Emerging
Watercolor on paper/9”x12”
This is the first in what is becoming a series that I think of as my “rock wall” paintings. It speaks of the ability to branch out – and even flourish – in spite of challenges or constraints. Like many others, I began painting in the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown, as a way of maintaining my equilibrium in uncertain times. But over the past year this has become much more than a hobby, and is now an essential daily practice. Even in adversity there can be growth.
Wajiha Batool
Pakistan
Gul
28.5” x 22”
My work is inspired by the idea of creation, where everything and everyone is simply a multiplication of one single unit. The idea comes from the process of miniature painting technique pardakht-, in which everything gets its entire form and shape by the repetition of one single dot. I visualized that dot in the form of 3mm and 4mm Wasli paper cut out and treated it the same way as we do while painting but the value of a dot turned out to more meaningful in the metaphorical terms of creation that compelled me to think about the role of female existence in the process of creation, representing them as a flower, as they both share common characteristics of nature.
Everything begins at the root. To start underground means to arrive at the place which determines the fate and direction of new beginnings and opportunities to come. Roots allow us to get grounded, require us to dig deep, and remind us of the importance of strong foundations. Each artist featured in While We Wait: Part 1 has interpreted this concept in their own unique way and the results are yours to uncover. Dig in with us!
Gabriela Matoso Ferreira Gomes
Salvador, Bahia, Brasil
Symbiosis
We are living in an occasion of growth, of evolution; a rescue of our roots, our ancestry. The central idea of the series is to show the return of the man to the wise place where he came from. It is to remember that the connection between man and nature can also be present in the 21st century, in the midst of so many modernities. We are being invited to realize that man continues to be a man, to have his simple daily life, but he will also be able to connect his mind and his body to nature, living in harmony and respect. Return! Nature is within us, we are sapiens, just one of thousands of species that share the same environment.
Anahita Bagheri
Tehran, Iran
Verdure Series
mixedmedia sculptures
nature has always been a source of inspiration, an asylum where you are sure you’re welcome and well protected,a place where you can again find yourself by loosing yourself into it. my ideas come from the visual elements in nature and various plants and also from my studies on ancient elements of Persian drawings and ornaments for example Slimi and Khataei , Chinese and Japanese traditional patterns and also European arabesque motifs that all are directly driven from nature.
Michelle Granville
Ireland
1.Then as now 2. Rooted( no fixed abode) 3. Solace
All are A4 size 8-1/4 x 11-3/4 inches 210 x 297mm
I am a mixed media artist living in the west of Ireland. My work consists of combinations of printmaking, collage and illustration.
For this theme of Rooted, I have submitted three collages. The theme of rooted resonated with me, as a recurring focus in my work is exploring belonging, sense of place and connection with nature.
Keith D Buswell
Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
1.Pisa 2. Orvieto 3. Siena
Etching, 19″x20″
Often times we try to define ourselves and our surroundings in terms of what we perceive in this world. For me I use trees and plants. They are the epitome of being rooted in one’s environment, stuck to the earth but no less important than any other element of this living biome we call Earth. To visit new and strange places is to uproot oneself from their home, leaving behind familiar soil. As I travel the world I try to relate myself, the uprooted, in terms of my new surroundings.
Jaime Aelavanthara
Florida
Where the Roots Rise
tea stained cyanotype, 16 in X20 in
Where the Roots Rise articulates humankind’s capacity to decay as a marker of our identity. Set in the swamps and woods of Florida, natural places where one encounters life and death, growth and decay, the series chronicles the intimate relationship of a woman and her surrounding nonhuman environment. The woman collects the bones, branches, and flora and treads with the animals, both dead and living. Recognizing the deaths of other creatures, this woman observes in death, she, too, will be repurposed and consumed by the earth. The otherworldly narrative is emphasized through the use of the cyanotype process, which shifts focus from potentially colorful landscapes and figures to patterns, textures, and the relationships of forms within the images. Tea-staining the prints dulls the blue and adds warmth. Printing on thin Japanese paper reflects the deterioration of nature and adds a feeling of fragility. This work reflects upon the forms, the impermanence, and interconnectedness of natural life.
Deborah Eve Alastra
Portland, Oregon, USA
Hibernation
33×33″
Based on dreams. In ‘Hibernation’ I was sleeping in a lovely spot by a pond under moonlight with animals … when I woke the pandemic was over. During this pandemic we’ve found those ‘spots’ that help us survive. Mine has been the out doors surrounded by nature, feeling very thankful to be able to spend time there.
Olivia Mansfield
UK
Redivivus
Acrylic on paper ( 20cm x 18cm)
My paintings are figments of fantastical imaginary worlds situated within realms which allude to our own existence. They approach you with unravelling narratives, which display splayed visions and altered expressions of the world around us. Themes merge and mutate, stemming from theological, classical, mythical and celestial imagery. The intuitive nature of how I make my paintings allows me to engage deeply with the image that manifests in the piece. Bodies, structures, creatures, beasts, all exist quietly and emerge from within the delicate but distinct and acute manipulation of the paint.
This piece entitled ‘Redivivus’ looks to encompass the idea of being rooted, of having place and purpose, tapping into a feeling of electric life, of movement and fundamentally, of growth and new beginnings. It is about re-birth, the emergence from one place, or position in time to another. A rejuvenated energy and a new focus which has a look of wonderment into what lies ahead for the future.
Kristina Rogers
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Tactile is King: The Return
Acrylic Yarn, Plastic, Paper, 2’x3’
Tactile is King revolves around themes of mental health and grounding. This tapestry, inspired by geological cross sections, exploits fibers and garbage for their tactile properties that are able to ground/root me during panic attacks. This piece parallels the characteristics that draw me to rocks and minerals by using the safe material of fiber.
Nico Commito
Caserta, Italy
inner map #5
fabric, thread, paper, wood
Usually, for my works, I start from poetry and in the first days of the first lockdown I remembered the last verses of San Martino del Carso by Ungaretti: (but in the heart no cross is missing, it is my heart The most torn country). That silence and the constriction in the house brought me back to my grandmother’s stories, so I took up materials and gestures that belonged to her and to the women of my village. It seemed to me, then, that mending is perhaps the only thing we can really do in life: stitch up shreds, experiences and pains to carry them with us. Reconnect scraps, bits of family and collective memories, traditions and materials of a tiny rural reality, my roots that I have refused all my life and that were still there in my hands. I took up the traditional Japanese mending, boron, used by peasant women to mend clothes, often only one for life, an image that has always struck me and allowed me to give a geographical arrangement to that constellation of
Anne Waggot Knott
Cumbria
Croft
Linoprint 20 x 30cm
Like a coiled spring, I await the Scottish border reopening. To get back to my homeland, to feel my feet on the rough ground and to stand, rooted once again, and content. Croft is my reimagining of an older limited edition print, Beinn (meaning mountain), after I destroyed the printing plate. The disjoint and disorder brings the home into focus, the sense of belonging, of sanctuary, in this wild land and unsettling times.
Michael Palladino
Pennsylvania, USA
‘ROOT’ series
photograph with encaustic wax
Scattered seeds, sprouting roots of life and hope. In the earth for grounding, foundation, and nourishment. Reaching deeper, growing stronger.
Mohamad Hossein Nourani
Tehran, Iran
Anonymous
Photography
Cemeteries have been the center of my work and thoughts for a long time. Walking among those who have left us, makes me feel peaceful and tranquil. The awareness of my own finitude washes away the anxieties and worries of daily life and guides me towards leading a more authentic and free life. Knowing without doubt that one day, I will become a part of this wonderful nature and contribute to the roots of what comes after. Like this anonymous gravestone. Embraced by and giving to “mother nature”. Grounded, settled, eternally rooted.
Feixue Mei
Missouri
1.Contagion 2.Nightmare or Daydream
A series of illustrations represent my reflection on people’s negative group behavior, both online and offline. An individual immersed for some length of time in a crowd soon finds oneself either in consequence of magnetic influence given out by the crowd or from some other cause of which we are ignorant. They are impulsive and irritable. They exaggerate the sentiments. They follow each other. They judge for no reason. They rooted from nowhere
Nain Tara
Pakistan
homage to home
oil and oil pastel on canvas, dimension; 4′ by4′
‘Home shifting’ withdraws from the emotions and struggles faced by oneself when moving from one home to another, showing up at a base richness that supplants paint as a medium; yet is completely established in painterly exchange. Within each piece, manifests the feelings of a person by using child imagery on a two-dimensional surface through strategies of abstracts reflection, representation as well as experimentation. The visuals are based on the topic of ‘home-shifting’ that depicts the feelings of a child when he experiences that phase of leaving a place with immense memories embedded into it with a place with everything new.
Heather Farrell
Missouri, USA
XOX
Mixed media on canvas/30″ x 30″
I always find myself rooted when in Nature. It is the place I feel calm, the sense of a presence larger than myself and inspiration. Especially during the pandemic and continued human suffering, I have been rooted in Nature, going on walks to clear my head and find answers in the stillness.
I have been working with the theme of snakes because I view them as a symbol of rebirth, rejuvenation and a circle of life. I find their coiling and imagery to be a beautiful design in and of itself and the positive associations there have been through history, I find more intriguing than the negative ones. Nature has an inherent rootedness for us and when we are truly present in Nature, it is us and we are it – one and the same. Sometimes with all of our modern noise, I think it can be easy to forget that primal and deep, beautiful connection.
Rosario
Brazil
Transformation: a journey to liberty
Oil on canvas
The work shows the journey of women, rooted in this sexist world in which we live, who seek freedom and recognition for themselves. We visualize the difficulty that many have to get rid of it. In the work, I try to make sure that any woman is represented in it.
Dinah Polhemus
Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA
Warp Drive
6 inches x 6 inches, oil, acrylic, and thread on canvas
A kitschy bag of flesh, Dinah Polhemus (she/her) explores satire, literature, and pop culture when creating paintings and drawings. Here for neither a good time–nor a long time–her weapons of choice are a round tip paintbrush, mac & cheese colored paint, and a cup of chai latte. Within her body of work, she dips her brush into many subjects ranging from Garfield the Cat to theoretical physics.
Fabulous collection ^___^ I especially loved the work of Gabriela Matoso Ferreira Gomes, Keith D Buswell, Deborah Eve Alastra, Michael Palladino and Nain Tara. Looking forward to the next series ^____^ /