This … Is Your …, This … Is My …

This … Is Your …, This … Is My …
curated by Salvador Castillo

Hilary Harnischfeger
Gisela Insuaste
Mariah Johnson
Hilary Pecis
Leslie Wayne

UTSA Satellite Space
Aug 6 – 23, 2009
Thursday, Aug 6 6-9pm
First Friday Aug 7 6-8pm

Artist Talk Aug 8 @ 1pm moderated by Dr. Pauline Strong

UTSA Satellite Space proudly announces “This… Is Your…, This… Is My…” a group exhibition curated by Salvador Castillo. This exhibit presents five artists from both coasts of the U.S. conjuring landscapes from stories.

Memories fall down the well of our consciousness. Each thought landing on top of each other until the layers as a whole are what we recall. Elements layered like geological strata, each slice recalling different figments, a line for every story. Depending on the materials and process, the layers reveal personal stories or more general, shared histories. Pointing to both terrain and recollection they help clarify the difference between a house and a home.

New York-based Hilary Harnischfeger makes densely layered work with paper, plaster and ink. Her sculptures look like rocks although they are constructed from plaster and paper. Similarly, her paintings and drawings appear to be actual slices from a rock wall.

Brooklyn-based Gisela Insuaste creates playful landscapes based on  memories of either imagined or real places. The colorful, sometimes child-like elements reveal the many aspects of one’s relationship to a place.

Los Angeles-based Mariah Johnson works with linens and fabrics. By folding and piling the fabrics she recalls her “mother’s efforts at maintaining aesthetic order in her home”. The layering and rolling of the fabrics, as well as their untold stories, begin to form stratified cross-sections similar to geological formations.

San Francisco-based Hilary Pecis creates intricate collages and drawings of fantasy landscapes. Her images are packed with patterns and colors that make them feel like the surface of alien planets.

New York painter and photographer Leslie Wayne creates paintings with dense layers of paint, which she pushes and shapes into sculptural ribbons or “strata” of undulating color. They droop and collapse under the pressure of their own weight.

“This… Is Your…, This… Is My…” will be on view at UTSA Satellite Space through Aug 23, 2009.