LIFE, STILL


July 27 - October 6, 2024

A still skin of color holds a restless gaze: a painting, a flower? Flowers’ symbolic and ornamental capacity wasn’t forged by humans, but the other way around: our ability to see is thanks to them. It is believed that color vision developed primarily to recognize plants – sources of medicine, sweetness, and nutrition – and flowers are the most precise way to identify them. In other words, if it weren't for flowers, painting wouldn't exist. At this point in history, the floral is a horror vacui of symbolisms: layers of desires and fears projected over layers of wonders and woes, economic, religious, and intimate. Powerful essences of meanings are distilled and concocted with images of flowers. 

Each flower evolved to attract certain gazes and hide from others, creating a realm of exciting and obscure insinuations. Each work of art, as we can explore in this exhibition, does the same. Cultural narratives that dismiss flowers as superficial domestic decoration might just be terrified of what they represent.

  • "An abominable mystery," protested Charles Darwin in the face of evidence that flowering plants took over the world so quickly and intensely that they contradicted his theory of evolution. Just like hummingbirds and bees, we are the result of that spontaneous burst that catalyzed endless ways of being, repelling, and loving. The intentions and explorations of the works in this exhibition are so diverse they can’t be summarized here. Or maybe they can: Life, still.

    Participating artists: 

  • Amy Bay (USA, b. 1970)

  • Brianna Rose Brooks (USA, b. 1997)

  • Cindy Bernhard (USA, b. 1989)

  • Kate Bickmore (USA, b. 1993)

  • Lisset Castillo (Cuba, b. 1974)

  • Erickson Díaz-Cortés (Puerto Rico, b. 1997)

  • Ryan Flores  (USA, b. 1986)

  • John Fou (France, b. 1983)

  • Daniel Gibson (USA, b. 1977)

  • Louis Granet (France, b. 1991)

  • Michael Harnish (USA, b. 1982)

  • Raymie Iadevaia (USA, b. 1984)

  • Arel Lisette (USA, b. 1997) 

  • Kelly Lynn Jones (USA, b. 1977)

  • Jose Jun Martinez (Puerto Rico, b. 1992)

  • Craig Kucia (USA, b. 1975)

  • Cristina Lama (Spain, b. 1977)

  • Caroline Larsen (USA, b. 1980)

  • Laurens Legiers (Belgium, b. 1994)

  • Mevlana Lipp (Germany, b. 1989)

  • Melanie Loureiro (Germany, b. 1994)

  • Nabeeha Mohamed (South Africa, b. 1988)

  • Kora Moya (Spain, b. 1993)

  • Galina Munroe (England / France, b. 1993)

  • Milena Muzquiz (Mexico, b. 1972)

  • Alina Perez (USA, b. 1995)

  • Cait Porter (USA, b. 1985) 

  • Vanessa Prager (USA, b. 1984)

  • Erin Riley (USA, b. 1985)

  • Nathan Ritterpusch (USA, b. 1976)

  • Javier Ruiz (Spain, b. 1989)

  • Alexandria Tarver (USA, b. 1989)