IMMERSION SITE
Virtual Exhibition — May 2021
Curation: Sam Light
Artsy Viewing Room — — Gallery Instagram
“Site-specific” — How do we define place in an increasingly digital world?
Specificity of place is a key component in understanding experience. Every day, new questions surrounding where one was, where one is, and where one is going, shape and evolve identity.
Artists use knowledge of place to explore natural dualities that exist, often finding meaning within powerful points of tension. Themes such as public vs. private, growing vs. decaying, urban vs. rural, loud vs. quiet, all speak to different components of identity and experience.
The works exhibited in IMMERSION SITE highlight artists working to define place, both responding to, and asking new questions about self, and the world around oneself.
Can digital space be considered site-specific? Is “digital vs. physical” the contemporary duality in art/creativity?
Experimental works on wood or paper, reimagined traditional photographic and oil painting techniques, non-fungible tokens, performance, video, and installation all speak to the notion of “site-specific”. Each a departure from traditionally recognized sculpture or land-art existing in this genre, the “site” these works reflect on is perhaps a new, third, ambiguous space, both digital and physical.
A space where there is a moment of understanding. A moment of confusion followed by clarity. A space where something physical becomes digital, and something digital becomes physical. A moment where reality blends into something slightly greater than before.
You are at a site — a physical environment.
You are on a (web)site —a digital environment.
You are in the IMMERSION SITE — a moment of clarity within any environment.
- Sam Light, Guest Curator
I am honored to have been given the opportunity to conceptualize and curate this exhibition with Carrie Able Gallery. This first entirely virtual exhibition explores ways to increase the visibility of emerging artists, in new, accessible ways. By presenting these works digitally, we are able to explore developing technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and use the best features of social media platforms to bring creative communities together, across the world. All works included were selected from an open-call, based solely on their response to the theme / question posed. As with all exhibitions at Carrie Able Gallery, there is no consideration of CV or biographical information when selecting works for inclusion.
INDIVIDUAL SELECTED WORKS
Myles Dunigan
Zero-Order Design, 2018
Unique, 1/1
Laser-engraved graphite, wax, and screen print on paper, 20x20”
Myles Dunigan is an American artist and educator born in Massachusetts. His work addresses ecological anxieties and the role of technology in imaging the natural world through the apocalyptic and the uncanny. Dunigan was trained as a printmaker at the Rhode Island School of Design and holds an M.F.A. from the University of Kansas. His recent exhibitions include the 4MOST Gallery at the University of Florida, the Boston Public Library, the Far Eastern Museum of Fine Art in Khabarovsk, Russia, and Kiosk Gallery in Kansas City. Dunigan currently works and teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he is considering getting a cat.
www.mylesdunigan.com / @mylesdunigan
Emily Small
Going For A Drive (I Wanted to be Prepared, But I Didn’t Want Anyone To Know), 2020
Unique, 1/1
A series of activations of knit costumes, with supplies accessible to construct escape plans during the first round of pandemic lockdowns. What remained outside my screen. Craft paper, watered-down acrylic, paper mache, knit fabrics treated as a canvas.
Dimensions Variable: Image, Video, Costume, Set
Emily Small is a multidisciplinary textile artist who works with performance, costume, installation, and narrative. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2018, and has worked between Philadelphia and Brooklyn since. Her work explores infrastructures of survival built into contemporary society which prepare for disaster and collapse (fallout shelters, fire drills, apocalypse narratives, self-help manuals, support systems, maternal lineage). Originally from Northern California, she is increasingly interested in the relation of these structures of survival and identities to intersections of the evolving ecological crisis.
www.emilyksmall.com / @e____ks____
Julian Johnson
Rosedale, 2021
Edition: 1/5
Archival Inkjet Print of Digital Painting, 20x20”
Julian Johnson — Born and raised in Austin, TX, Julian Johnson received his B.A. in Studio Art with a Concentration in Photography from Wesleyan University in 2019. As an artist living with Marfan Syndrome, his practice revolves around mental health, healing, and shifting landscapes. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including CICA Museum in Gimpo, South Korea and Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. He now lives and works in New York.
Adrienne Moumin
The Forces of Victory, 2012
Unique, 1/1
Over 170 Hand-Cut-and-Assembled 3-D Gelatin Silver Photo Collage, 29½” x 26¼” x 1½”
Film captures of the Victory Apartments, 561 10th Ave at 41st Street, Manhattan, NY
Adrienne Moumin is a visual artist based in NYC and Silver Spring, MD. Moumin works in hand-printed B&W photography and photo-based collage. She is best known for her Architextures hand-cut and -assembled gelatin silver photo collage series, ongoing since 2000.
She has exhibited her work for over twenty years in solo and group shows in New York, DC, and nationwide, and her work is in numerous public and private collections.
Moumin was awarded a 2021 Artists and Scholars Grant by the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD), for the creation of several large-scale Architextures photo collages. She was also awarded a 2021 Independent Artist Award by the Maryland State Arts Council. She served as a Design Consultant for the recently-installed public art installation, Meet Me at the Triangles, in the new Wheaton, MD Town Center.
Moumin’s photographs have been featured in New York Gallery Guide, About.com, and the Sun magazine. She has been profiled and interviewed for numerous online publications and blogs, including Hyperallergic.com. Moumin has been interviewed for WBAI Radio in New York, and she has taught and consulted in a variety of photographic settings.
www.picturexhibit.com / @adrienne.moumin
Susan Hopp
Upstream, 2017
Unique, 1/1
Archival Inkjet Print of Digital Collage, 16x20”
Susan Hopp earned her MFA in Visual Arts from Lesley University College of Art and Design. Previously, she obtained a BFA in Painting from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Sculpture from West Virginia University.
Hopp published in INPHA 4: International Photography Annual from Manifest Gallery and has been invited to participate in shows in Colorado, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. Her work is landscape based using appropriated imagery, phone apps, and digital processes to reflect on the idea of Place. The final result is a dream-like image that meshes recognizable and uncertain terrains from real and referential images.
Hopp taught advanced drawing at Metro State University of Denver as well as Foundations Studies at The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Lakewood Colorado. In 2016, she accepted a full time Faculty position in the Department of Foundation Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2017 she became Associate Chair of Foundation Studies teaching Two-Dimensional Design, Color Theory, and Three-Dimensional Design. She was a member of Artnauts Art and Social Practice Collective from 2016 - 2017.
susan-hopp.com / @susandhopp
David Dasharath Kalal
Sapphirine Body, 2020
Unique, 1/1
Acrylic, latex and acetate transfer on wood , 8x10”
David Dasharath Kalal — Questions of translation and transformation run throughout Kalal's work -- part of an ongoing engagement with video reconfigurations of other art forms: painting, documentary, graffiti, cinema and music. The resulting paintings and painted photography weave together lyrics, sound samples, digitally reworked images, and technically manufactured abstractions. Kalal's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Canada, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Con Artists Collective, Upstream Gallery, LIC Arts Gallery, 440 Gallery, Allmänna Galleriet, Hong Kong Microwave Festival, Inside/Out Vienna, Grand Casino Luzern, The Frameline Festival, The Mix Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Siddharth Gautam Festival, Artwallah, Robert Flaherty Seminar and Nature Morte Gallery in New Delhi. Kalal lives and works in New York.
www.davidkalal.net / @davidkalal
Kahori Kamiya
Job Interview, 2015
Unique, 1/1
2:47 minutes, HD single channel video
Dimensions Variable
Kahori Kamiya is a multidisciplinary artist who was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan and moved to New York where she received her MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts. Her work was awarded by Hudson Valley Contemporary Museum in 2020 and received 1st prize at ANTE mag in 2021.
Kamiya has participated in both national as well as international exhibitions including MVVO Oculus Westfield World Trade Center, NYC (2020); Van Der Plas Gallery (2020); Carrie Able Gallery, Brooklyn (2020); I Like Your Work Online Exhibition (2020); DIY Cultures, London (2017); Prospect Gallery, Australia (2014); Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn (2012); the 14th Media Art Biennale Alternative Now, Poland (2011); Pärnu International Film & Video Festival in Estonia (2011).
Her works are on view at Woodstock Artists Association & Museum in NY and are invited to show at Lacuna International Contemporary Art Festival in Spain and among other gallery shows in NY this summer.
www.kahorikamiya.com / @kahorikamiya
Sam Light
ABOVE TASMANIA, 2019
Unique, 1/1
Analog image for collection as a non-fungible token (NFT )
SAM LIGHT is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and creative director working across media.
After receiving his BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute in 2018, Light circumnavigated the globe, always traveling west. Inspired by the idea that “there is always more west” or “there is always something down the road” Light is interested in how identity is understood through physical and imagined space.
His current research and photographic work explores conditional probability in lived experience. Considering how visual media can be viewed as “site-specific”, Light has spent time over the last two years exploring long-distance train travel to understand a sense of freedom, with limitations.
Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Light is exploring collaborative opportunities and is a Studio Assistant / Guest Curator at Carrie Able Gallery.
www.samlight.studio / @lightboy_
Alexey Adonin
Shore of Fancies, 2017
Unique, 1/1
Oil on Canvas, 35.4x35.4” (90x90cm)
Alexey Adonin is a Jerusalem-based abstract-surrealist artist. He was born in Slutsk, Belarus, in 1973. Alexey graduated in 1993 from the State Art College named after A. Glebov (Minsk, Belarus). In the same year, he has immigrated to Israel. Life is an enigma that does not have any logical explanation. In his creative endeavor, Alexey tries to apply a more philosophical approach and hint at things' mystical origin. He mostly strives to get away from banal copying of reality, preferring to create one of his own, which somehow reflects his inner world. Alexey uses his art as a platform to express his profound ideas about reality, humanity, and their intertwined behaviors. His works have been showcased locally and internationally and are held in private collections around the world.
www.alexeyadoninart.com / @otherworldlydream
Justin Clifford Rhody
Closed Off Opening, 2020
Unique, 1/1
13 min, MiniDV, Color, Silent
An aurae psycho-portrait of a bush in bloom, time spent alongside it & a newfound comfort in isolation.
Dimensions Variable
Justin Clifford Rhody (b. 1984, Flint Michigan) is a fine art photographer, filmmaker and sound artist based in New Mexico. Rhody ran Friends & Relatives Records, a music/zine/object label (2000-2016), organized a public slideshow series of found 35mm photo slides called Vernacular Visions (2013-2018), and was a co-founder of the White Leaves Artist Residency (2015-2020). In 2018 Rhody exhibited work in Brooklyn, London, Oakland and Santa Fe, presented talks in Los Angeles, Oakland CA and at the Northern New Mexico College and was an artist-in-residence at LATITUDE in Chicago. In 2019 Rhody spent 6 months in the Everglades developing a large body of work titled No Fixed Borders Florida which was sponsored in part by the Kodak film company. Throughout the 2020-2021 pandemic Rhody has had films screened in Italy, Santa Fe and San Francisco, photo work published in Argentina and released three VHS tapes, a set of postcards, two 7″ records, and a cassette of field recordings.
www.justincliffordrhody.com / @justincliffordrhody
Curt Confer
Calling You, 2020
Ice, sand, string, flashlights, and other found objects. Sound: William Basinski
Dimensions Variable : Recording of 1 hour performance
Curt Confer is a visual artist whose work spans drawing, video, installation, and performance. After studying Theater and Studio Art at Hamilton College, he earned an MFA from New York University in 2007. Since then he has exhibited at several organizations and institutions including The Korean Cultural Center, Columbia University, and The School of Visual Arts.
Fernanda Morales Tovar
Displaced Nexus, 2021
Unique, 1/1
Oil on Canvas, 31.5 x 39 in (80 x 100 cm)
Fernanda Morales Tovar, (Mexican, b. 1992) She studied a Master and a Bachelor in Visual Arts at the Faculty of Arts and Design from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She completed an Academic Research Stay at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (2019). Her work has been shown in a solo show and in more than twenty-five group shows in Mexico and the Netherlands. In different artistic centers, such as OpenArtExchange Gallery, Mexican Plastic Room, Raúl Anguiano Art Museum, University Museum of Sciences and Arts, Museum of Mexico City, Carrillo Gil Museum of Art, among others. Her work has been selected in Mexican Biennials, such as IV José Atanasio Monroy Painting Biennial, Lumen 02 Art Biennial, and the Lumen 01 Art Call. She was awarded a Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies in Visual Arts, CEP UNAM Scholarship (2018-2020). She has taught painting courses at the Faculty of Architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her work has been published in national and international press, and her work is part of the Lumen Collection-Mexico and private collections.
www.fernandamoralestovar.com / @fernandamoralestovar
Elle DioGuardi
OVER AND OVER, 2019
Edition: 1/20
Archival Pigment Print of Installation, 20x30”
Elle DioGuardi is a visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated with a BFA from the New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University in Boston in 2015. Since then, she has continued her studio practice, showing her work around Boston, Cambridge, and New York, and working as a professional photographer and studio assistant, and attending artist residencies.
Elle’s goal as an artist is to connect with viewers on an emotional level, by providing a lens through which they can examine their own world. She achieves this by creating and photographing works that physically confront the viewer with their own reflection, combined with a text phrase. These works vary from intimate mirror pieces where the reflective surface is etched away by hand, to installation pieces that confront the viewer in public or on a larger scale.
www.elledioguardi.com / @elledioguardi