New Members’ Show

Julie Alexander
Julia Freeman
Shaun Kardinal

May 02 – June 01, 2013
Reception / Thursday, May 02, 5–8pm

Julie Alexander
My paintings and drawings are straightforward material layerings. They are lines and scrubbings and movements. My process is full of intention - I apply, I scrape and erase, I make a statement and negate it. A seminal image for me, buried in my childhood, is one that never existed. It contains a weathered fence, a fence post, unkempt grasses, dankness, discarded and rusted bits of past ideas but also sunshine and wild freshness. There is so much for me in that image ranging from the personal to the political: my tendency to solitude, my need to connect to a landscape, a distrust of suburbia as a way to organize ourselves, a desire to bridge the constructed gap between humans and nature, excrement and Ajax.

Julia Freeman
My most recent work is based off of narratives created from past memories and present day experiences. I'm interested in how our brain gives us only a small view or space for these memories and interpretations of experiences to exist within us. To create these works, I use fabric dye and traditional dye methods to create most of my own materials. I also use photography, magazine images, and other identifiable imagery to create contrast with the unrecognizable fabric dye. By using a method of bricolaging that is similar to quilting, I arrange and rearrange the pieces to create "almost" complete compositions. I use everyday materials and fabrics as a way of creating a connection in the everyday world in the same way that I use color as a way to create familiarity, tension and awkwardness.

Shaun Kardinal
Over the past two years, I've embroidered geometric patterns on found postcards in an ongoing series titled Alterations, where contrasting patterns and colors emerge from accents in the imagery. An exercise in productivity and aesthetic, the series has yielded nearly 70 pieces. Drawing from that fruition, but ready to try something different, I present a new series: Coordination, where patterns and colors immerse themselves into their monochromatic surroundings.