curatorial text

Art has prepared me for living with a significant lack of human touch—gone is the weight of a hug, a spontaneous hand grasped for a few moments. While six feet of distance between each other still feels alien, we are used to not touching art. In fact, we embrace the boundary of this interaction as a necessary part of art's preservation. The lack of touch adds something, a closer way of looking.

I didn’t mean to curate a show that so closely revolves around touch, but looking at the group of artists I feel that’s what subconsciously happened. Simply by looking at the works in fall forecast, we can understand their texture. The patterns of Anni Spadafora's textiles and Kizi Spielmann Rose's paintings are contemporary takes on textile patterns—plaid and weaves made dynamic through glitches, saturated colours, and bio-metric layers. 

Marissa Y Alexander's ceramics likewise are made up of layers that compile to make a deceivingly flat surface—solid and smooth. A three-dimensional ceramic that's camouflaged as a painting. 

In addition to Alex Kisilevich’s photographs, his video work captures impossible movement—fabric dancing without touch or wind. The result is magical, opening up the possibilities of a world without touch, but not without tenderness.