Producing Space
curated by Zach Clark & Kristin Hough, exhibition essay by Ginny Van Dine
featuring : Kieran Riley Abbott, Diana Antohe, Tavarus Blackmonster, Maddy Conover, Josh Dannin, Shannon Delahanty, Ron Linn, Katana Lippart, Aida Lizalde, Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Rodrigo Ormachea, Alyson Provax
featuring : Kieran Riley Abbott, Diana Antohe, Tavarus Blackmonster, Maddy Conover, Josh Dannin, Shannon Delahanty, Ron Linn, Katana Lippart, Aida Lizalde, Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Rodrigo Ormachea, Alyson Provax
In the spring of 2020, early in the COVID induced Shelter In Place, we began discussing ways to fill the space that just weeks earlier was filled by gathering to view and share artwork within our communities. Coming to accept that groups would not be able to come together for the foreseeable future, we thought we would use this opportunity to allow a small group of artists that would not normally meet in their own locations to share their work together. We asked 12 artists from around the country to create 14 multiple based works inspired by their immediate location. The pieces were then mailed to each of the other participating artists and the two of us as curators. The work did not need to be edition based, as in a traditional printmaking exchange portfolio, with many artists choosing to make completely unique works for each recipient. Through collaboration with the USPS, each artist receives a unique version of the show, which is theirs to own and install however they choose. Of the two curator collections, one will be held as an archive, with the other being temporarily installed in situ throughout Northern California. None of the work is for sale.
The show now culminates as an online exhibition via outbackarthouse.com, as a digital catalog PDF, and a postcard available to be mailed. The collection can be viewed by appointment in Northern California by requesting a socially distant install outside of your home or in an agreed upon public location.
To view and download the catalog, click here.
To request a postcard, inquire about a viewing, or be added to a mailing list with updates about the collection, please fill out this form.
The show now culminates as an online exhibition via outbackarthouse.com, as a digital catalog PDF, and a postcard available to be mailed. The collection can be viewed by appointment in Northern California by requesting a socially distant install outside of your home or in an agreed upon public location.
To view and download the catalog, click here.
To request a postcard, inquire about a viewing, or be added to a mailing list with updates about the collection, please fill out this form.
Diana Antohe, Richmond's June, 1-14, Acrylic on yupo and bristol, thread, 4" x 6", 2020
Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Territories, Transfer on paper, 10.5" x 7.5", 2020
Rodrigo Ormachea, Lapidarios, Memory foam, gouache, 8" x 4" x 10", 2020
Ron Linn, little now/heres, Graphite on paper, 5.75" x 4.2", 2020
Kieran Riley Abbott, Pavilion, Sunprint, 8" x 7", 2020
Alyson Provax, Untitled, Letterpress and eraser on arches text wove, 13" x 4", 2020
Aida Lizalde, Knot 1-13, Ceramics and cardboard, 2" x 1" x 1", 2020
Shannon Delahanty, Flame, Flare, Smoke Signal, etc, Scanned screenprint, digital print, 4" x 5.25", 2020
Tavarus Blackmonster, Untitled 1-13, Acrylic on canvas boards, irregular, unnumbered, 5" x 5", 2020
Josh Dannin, Untitled, Riso and letterpress, 8" x 6", 2020
Katana Lippart, In Part, VE of 14, Collage, 5" x 7", 2020
Madeleine Conover, 49th Street, Drypoint, hand-colored with gouache, printed on pasta maker. 6" x 4", 2020
Space Constructs
by Ginny Van Dine
Our relationship to space is different today than it was five months ago. We’ve been accustomed to accessing changing landscapes, entering new territories, and sharing places both public and private. Our relationship to space now is in many ways antithetical to the definition of the word. Now, space is more of a container—meant to keep us close, protected, and safe. It is a lived experience that evokes both comfort and anxiety. We can no longer easily share company with friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. Yet, we are all living in that reality simultaneously; living a strange, albeit, shared experience. For a culture that has long emphasized and encouraged outward expansion, Americans sticking largely to the home has been a surreal adjustment. Living rooms, backyards, neighborhoods, and towns are now the focus of our geographical attention.
Producing Space engages these themes of location, isolation, and connection—exhibiting works by artists from across the country who mailed their work to one another, as well as the curators. This exhibition is as much about the process as it is about the work itself. In a time where gathering to view art in person is largely impossible, there is something poignant about mailing art to one another. There is a personal exchange that makes the process at once intimate and distant. Rather than exist as one static exhibition, Producing Space takes on multiple iterations: living in fixed locations as well as mobile ones. The show is permanent and ephemeral as it lives online, on the move, in bedrooms, on mantle places, studio walls, porches and rocky landscapes.
by Ginny Van Dine
Our relationship to space is different today than it was five months ago. We’ve been accustomed to accessing changing landscapes, entering new territories, and sharing places both public and private. Our relationship to space now is in many ways antithetical to the definition of the word. Now, space is more of a container—meant to keep us close, protected, and safe. It is a lived experience that evokes both comfort and anxiety. We can no longer easily share company with friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. Yet, we are all living in that reality simultaneously; living a strange, albeit, shared experience. For a culture that has long emphasized and encouraged outward expansion, Americans sticking largely to the home has been a surreal adjustment. Living rooms, backyards, neighborhoods, and towns are now the focus of our geographical attention.
Producing Space engages these themes of location, isolation, and connection—exhibiting works by artists from across the country who mailed their work to one another, as well as the curators. This exhibition is as much about the process as it is about the work itself. In a time where gathering to view art in person is largely impossible, there is something poignant about mailing art to one another. There is a personal exchange that makes the process at once intimate and distant. Rather than exist as one static exhibition, Producing Space takes on multiple iterations: living in fixed locations as well as mobile ones. The show is permanent and ephemeral as it lives online, on the move, in bedrooms, on mantle places, studio walls, porches and rocky landscapes.
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Each artist was asked to make work inspired by their immediate location. The range of interpretations on this theme are vast; reflecting the complexity of human experience. Producing Space gives the viewer much to see, process, and feel. Living in a country grappling with a deadly pandemic, racial inequality, political unrest, and mass poverty—it’s impossible not to feel, to question, to observe many things at once. This is the quiet power of Producing Space. Each artwork presents a visual echo of what you as the viewer could be feeling.
Artists Diana Antohe, Aida Lizalde and Shannon Delahanty present works that address the collective sense of unrest in this country as it wrestles with racism and inequality. Through different mediums and approaches, their work reflects the cultural demand for change and the challenge against established systems. Other artists in the exhibition look to nature, which has been less confined by human activity than it has been in centuries. As the world has been forced to collectively slow down, our relationship to the planet and its natural landscapes has inevitably changed as interpreted by Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Ron Linn and Rodrigo Ormachea. Artists also explore the structures that make up our surroundings, brought into heightened attention as we spend more time in one place. There are compositions of space that are real as well as imagined, addressing our ever-changing definition of place and how we interact with it.
Producing Space gives us a lot to feel. There are tangible emotions of grief, distress, and confusion. Although each work is distinct in its approach and execution, there is an undercurrent that binds it all: things are undeniably different now. But as a whole Producing Space has a ring of optimism to it. It seems to tell us that change is in motion and it is unstoppable—but ultimately, it can be for the better.
Artists Diana Antohe, Aida Lizalde and Shannon Delahanty present works that address the collective sense of unrest in this country as it wrestles with racism and inequality. Through different mediums and approaches, their work reflects the cultural demand for change and the challenge against established systems. Other artists in the exhibition look to nature, which has been less confined by human activity than it has been in centuries. As the world has been forced to collectively slow down, our relationship to the planet and its natural landscapes has inevitably changed as interpreted by Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Ron Linn and Rodrigo Ormachea. Artists also explore the structures that make up our surroundings, brought into heightened attention as we spend more time in one place. There are compositions of space that are real as well as imagined, addressing our ever-changing definition of place and how we interact with it.
Producing Space gives us a lot to feel. There are tangible emotions of grief, distress, and confusion. Although each work is distinct in its approach and execution, there is an undercurrent that binds it all: things are undeniably different now. But as a whole Producing Space has a ring of optimism to it. It seems to tell us that change is in motion and it is unstoppable—but ultimately, it can be for the better.
Installation images by artists and curators, various locations, 2020
