January 2025 / Controllables

Colleen Louise Barry
Tania Colette B.
Sabella Flagg
Parisa Ghaderi
James Hartunian
Julia Monté
Cameron Day O’Connell
Warren Armando Pope
Tim Roda

Controllables:
Work from SOIL’s Newest Members

January 02 – February 22, 2025

Opening Reception / Thursday, January 02, 5–8pm

Winter Gallery Hours:
Friday–Sunday, 11am–4pm

SOIL Gallery presents Controllables, an exhibition of work from its new members: Colleen Louise Barry, Tania Colette B., Sabella Flagg, Parisa Ghaderi, James Hartunian, Julia Monté, Cameron Day O’Connell, Warren Armando Pope, and Tim Roda. This dynamic exhibition offers a new take on the concept of control – when we experience art, who has it? Is it the artist, the viewer, the space, or the work itself? Does the larger cultural context have control of the way art moves through us?

In Controllables, each artist has been brought together serendipitously, previously unfamiliar with each others’ work, presenting us with a scenario, a question, or a puzzle, honoring the possibility of the unpredictable. Controllables is a proposition for an imagined future, full of unexpected parallels and resilient narratives. Together, these works offer joyful defiance while embracing that which cannot be changed.

ARTIST BIOS // STATEMENTS

Tim Roda is based in Long Beach, NY. He is an artist and assistant professor at Molloy University who has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. He is known for his multidisciplinary approach to clay and photography that record themes of the family. Roda holds a MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. He has received several awards, most notably a Fulbright Award to Italy. Roda is the 2012 recipient of the Kennedy Family Fellowship at the University of South Florida, Tampa. He completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation, Marie Walsh Sharpe, and the Centro Cultural Andratx. His work is in included in the following collections: Bard College Museum, Hessel Foundation; The Rose Museum, Brandeis University; Seattle Art Museum and the Henry Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts; Portland Art Museum; Elton John Collection; Museum of Contemporary Photography; Essl Museum; Gaia Collection; and the Centro Cultural Andratx. Reviews of Roda’s work have been included in the New Yorker Magazine, ARTFORUM, Modern Painters Magazine, Beautiful/Decay, Art in America, and Slate.

Colleen Louise Barry is an artist, writer, and teacher. Her work has been shown at the Seattle Art Museum, The Factory, The Hedreen, and elsewhere. Her first collection of poems was published by After Hours Editions in 2022; she titled it Colleen. She formerly ran the independent publishing and curatorial projects Mount Analogue, Gramma, and Angel Tears. She is a middle school art teacher and works in various capacities with young people, helping them to build community organizing skills through art.

Tania Colette B. is an artist based in Seattle. She has exhibited at the Thurston County Museum of Fine Art, Carnation Contemporary, Melrose Botanical Garden, Berkeley Art Center, and others. She holds an MA in Culture Industry from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020) and a BFA in Sculpture from California College of the Arts (2014). She is a member of SOIL Artist-Run Gallery in Seattle.

Parisa Ghaderi is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Technology at Shoreline Community College. Born and raised in Iran, Parisa holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan.

Her artwork has earned recognition and been displayed in esteemed galleries and museums, including Musée d’Art moderne de Paris, the Craft and Folk Art Museum Los Angeles Museum, The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, and the Grand Rapids Art Museum, to name a few. Through her art, Parisa delves into themes of identity, belonging, and social issues, employing a diverse range of mediums and techniques. Her creative vision extends beyond visual art, as she has curated thought-provoking exhibitions, directed performances, and created engaging short films and animations.

Sabella Flagg is an artist, designer, and writer from Chicago now living in Seattle. She creates under the moniker “the monarq” which is a multidisciplinary art practice. Her work explores concepts of selfhood and identity through fiber arts, printmaking, analog photography, and portraiture. She seeks to represent how true selfhood is multifaceted and subjective.

Her exhibitions include group shows like "ACES: Artists of Color Expo" at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute and “Inside/ Outside” with the Museum of Museums. Sabella has participated in artist residencies including the Willapa Bay AiR and Vashon Artist Residency. She is a recipient of the Artist Trust GAP Grant and has had public installations with the city of SeaTac and Seattle Restored.

James Hartunian is a queer interdisciplinary artist based in Seattle, WA. He constructs electronic environments and objects to stimulate and simulate future worlds, future bodies, and future landscapes. He has exhibited domestically in Columbus and Findlay Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, Washington, and internationally at Ars Electronica in Linzburg, Austria (2020). He received a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan (2019) and an MFA from Ohio State University (2023).

Using primarily found objects discarded on the sides of roads and other recycled materials, Julia Monté creates stilted scenes and intricate works about unfolding systems and destined passengers. Julia’s pattern-filled depiction of sprawling apparatuses examine communal experiences from all vantage points.

Cameron Day O'Connell is a Seattle photographer, curator, former doula, and herbalist-in-training. They graduated from Hampshire College with a bachelor's degree in Visual Arts and Psychology in 2015. They are a former member of lion's main art collective, curatorial intern at Bridge Productions, organizer with Full Spectrum Doulas Seattle, organizer with brave folk poetry, & a former board member at The Vera Project.

Warren Armando Pope is an artist, illustrator, public artist, and architectural designer based in Seattle, WA. As an artist, he hybridizes painting, drawing, and digital techniques informed by architectural studies to explore themes of otherness, plasticity, and transformation as they relate to multiracial and queer identity in the digital age. Warren is a member of SOIL Gallery and was awarded an Artist Trust 2024 GAP grant. He has shown work at the Vashon Center for the Arts, Carnation Contemporary, Museum of Museums, and Northwest African American Museum.