Is This What Loving Someone Is Like?

Curated by Grace Reff 

The ETSU Department of Art & Design and the Slocumb Galleries in partnership with the Urban Redevelopment Alliance (URA) present “Is This What Loving Someone Is Like?” a group exhibition curated by Grace Reff. The show will be on display from July 22 to August 16 at the Tipton Gallery with reception August 2, reception, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The exhibit title, “Is this what loving someone is like?” came from a poem by Emily Pettit, that inspired Reff to curate the show that addresses the question of “how we understand the unknowable.” The works in the show “focus on the subjective, that which is undefinable and given meaning by process, approach and emotion.”

The participating artists include Carrie Dyer, Anna Enloe, Allison Hall, Satpreet Kahlon, Storm Ketron, Will Pope, and Gail Vollrath. Pieces in the exhibition challenge the idea of the planned, the expected, and the known while exploring the undefinable and the subjective as it is expressed through process, emotion and method.

Anna Enloe presents a time based piece on the process of finding, collecting, documenting, and presentation. Interested in keeping a record of the things around her, her investigation of the objects around her question the way we know ourselves and our past.

Allison Hall creates work advocating for modes of personal self-discovery. Her pieces feign methodology, order and control, but are in fact created in direct contrast. Through her practice she finds meaning in the making, allowing her work to become relics in investigation.

Satpreet Kahlon’s fabric work references process, emotion, history and the unavoidable mess, mistakes, and discovering that occur along the way.

Influenced by her emotional response to an incredible loss, Carrie Dyer’s piece, Cloud Control: The Devastation of an Anchor, represents fractured states of isolation through growing crystal-like structures, while grounded cloud forms represent hope. Dyer’s piece considers the effect of the unplanned and the unique reactions that takes place when the unexpected occurs.

Will Pope explores what is perceived and what is real and the mystery that occurs where that line is drawn. His conceptual work is influenced by dichotomy and the juxtaposition of what is thought to be known and actuality.

Gail Vollrath employs intuitive and natural mark making in her series of Polaroid drawings. Images reflecting conversations, ephemera, relationships and current process are drawn over with mediums including colored pencil, china marker and white out, as she investigates process, change and the transformation that occurs between an original or beginning and the ultimate end.

The Tipton Gallery is located at 126 Spring St. in downtown Johnson City. The gallery is open during receptions, First Fridays and by appointment. For more information, contact Gallery Director Karlota Contreras-Koterbay at 423-483-3179 or e-mail contrera@etsu.edu. For more information about the artists or the show, contact Grace Reff at reffga@goldmail.etsu.edu.