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2016-2018

Magali Hébert-Huot

Magali Hébert-Huot

catalyst for fluidity

Occupying a purgatorial space, my visual and material practice is a direct manifestation of a halfway subjectivity. This ambivalent and contradictory state relates to an attachment to an historical culture while not being presently in contact and living in a constant melange of languages. With kitschy depictions of solemn matters, the work explores structures, beliefs and artifacts with regards to the mutative effects of time, dislocation, and translation. My practice is born from the place where language (one/both/in-between) fails completely. The representations I create are situated amid language, cliché and idiosyncrasy, believability and disillusionment, sincerity and irreverence.

Furthermore, wax acts as a catalyst for fluidity, neither solid or liquid, structurally sound but weak. Visually, the wax pieces in saturated hue are used to mock the less-is-more Miesian aesthetic that opens the door for cheaper building material, like OSB or stucco. During the process of casting objects in wax, one material substitutes another, simulating an object by a more laborious process that which made the original. The time spent with the work, the repetition, and the commitment is not only useless but proves once again that the structure is flawed.

Originally from Québec City, Magali Hébert-Huot is currently residing in Baltimore MD. After Studying at Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy, she completed her BFA at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2012 and received her MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art – Rinehart School of Sculpture in 2015. She has a rigorous studio practice, investigating and synthesizing her interests in sculpture, printmaking, architecture and history. She has exhibited work in ‘Fresh Paint / New Construction’ at Art Mûr Gallery in Montreal, and has recently shown at (e)merge Art Fair in DC, Open Space and Space Camp in Baltimore, as well as various exhibitions in Philadelphia and Québec City. She is the 2015 recipient of the International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

Rives Wiley

Rives Wiley

figures are trapped in an image

I envision scenes as a blend of the real, surreal, and virtual overlaid with an inner commentary and bound up by contemporary social conventions. In every sense, the figures are trapped in an image. They are confined to the scene in appearance, thought, behavior. My work attempts to expose the restraints, repetitions, acquiescence to social norms, acceptance of convention, and dissolution of original expression.

Although my paintings, actors, and sets are painted by hand, they are intimately informed by a digital aesthetic and often attempt to hide evidence of the painter’s touch. This juxtaposition, or tension between the hand imitating the digital through familiar settings, strikes a chord within the viewer that persuades them to reexamine how they fit into their own realities.

Please find below an excerpt from a literal facet of my work:

We sit at my kitchen table. A fluorescent lens flare hangs as a chandelier between me, Josh, and Josh. I laugh, but only hear my jokes. We consume the blonde soup and drink champagne out of jars. Flies made of pearls buzz in my ear. Josh and Josh hold the 34 double A bowls tighter as they slurp the blonde hair. I pretend they are funny. Really, really funny. When they are finished they leave. I lock the door, sit on my massage rug and watch skin on a screen. The flesh hues and oriental tattoos grow back into my skin.

Rives Wiley, born in 1990, is a painter and video maker working in Washington DC.  She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2013. She recently attended Vermont Studio Center, was featured in Maake Magazine, and became a Hamiltonian fellow.  Her work has been exhibited in group shows in DC and Rhode Island, and she will have her first solo show at the Hillyer Art Space in October 2016.

Paolo Morales

Paolo Morales

dislocation in urban and domestic settings

My documentary-style photographic practice is a product of observing and collaborating with people who appear isolated yet seek out connection to others. Fueled by a preoccupation with physical touch as a sign of intimacy, affection, and support, my work suggests feelings of emotional dislocation in urban and domestic settings.

The title “These Days I Feel Like a Snail Without a Shell,” is based on an exchange between Hajime, the protagonist of Haruki Murakami’s novel “South of the Border, West of the Sun,” and Izumi, one of Hajime’s love interests. The title implies emotional instability and refers to my role an unnamed and unrevealed character in the work. It is also in the present tense (“these days”) and refers to an “I,” which I interpret to refer to myself (the photographer) as a character. The character is vulnerable and is in search of a place or feeling of safety. This photographer-as-character, then, moves through the world without a shell while remaining in search of one. 

My aim is to draw the viewer into a sustained longing for connection within individual photographs and the people who occupy them. I am in pursuit of pictures where people appear emotionally isolated despite physical proximity. For some inexplicable reason, the people in my pictures still have a desire to reach out and connect to others.

Paolo Morales is a photographer. Exhibitions include the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, Kings Highway Library, Pingyao International Photography Festival, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and ClampArt, among others. Residencies include Blue Mountain Center and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He received a BFA from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and an MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design. He teaches at The Potomac School. 

Rachel Guardiola

Rachel Guardiola

the notion of vast geologic time

As a multimedia artist with a background in natural history preservation, I am continually investigating the space where art and science can be crossed. Through lens-based technology I construct elaborate histories of future past landscapes inspired by the notion of vast geologic time. These histories contemplate our situation to the last environmental frontier, and human curiosity to seek territory beyond this planet into the cosmic unknown. I utilize analogue and digital photography, film, video, sound, micro-imaging, alternative darkroom processes, and scientific tools to examine the shifting boundary between fact or fiction. I move between the field to capture image, sound, and research, and studio where these fragments are developed into projects. The camera lens becomes a mediator between the body and external field of vision, as technology mimics the mechanical act of looking up close and far away. The apparatus is able to take on the perspective of the universal witness navigating through an other earth.

Rachel Guardiola is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in natural history preservation. Her practice investigates the intersection of art, science, and human curiosity to seek the unknown through lens based technology. Rachel has lived and exhibited internationally in the U.S., France, Italy, Australia, and Senegal. She has been an artist in residence at Atelier de Visu and the Vermont Studio Center. Rachel was a selected artist for Light City Baltimore 2016. Her work has been included in Artscape 2015, Nature in the Dark II, and Re:Cinema Persistence of the Cinematic in Contemporary Practice projects.  

Rachel received a MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal program in 2015 and BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. She will be participating in the 2016 HEIMA artist residency in Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland and Art & Science Expedition with the Arctic Circle. She has been recently awarded a Hamiltonian Artist Fellowship. 

Aschely Vaughan Cone

Aschely Vaughan Cone

entry and obstruction, access and denial

Using the arch and the shield as recurring motifs, my paintings investigate notions of entry and obstruction, access and denial. The arch spans spatial depth and denotes a passageway or entry/exit. It suggests an opening, an absence, a possible future; it is passive. The shield obstructs, conceals, protects, represents; it is frontal, present and active.

Both the central form/void and the peripheral form/void function as interdependent realms. They are either éndon (within: inside, interior, familiar) or éxo (outside: without, exterior, foreign). The reading of one as solid form or spatial void is mutually dependent on the reading of the other as its opposite. The large-scale canvases reinforce an association with architectural form, so that the painted arch creates the sensation of literal passageway.

The work is dependent on how the viewer locates and identifies these form/void relationships. Pivoting between arch/void or shield/form, the painting hovers in a state of suspension, withholding and unfolding, collapsing and expanding. No single reading is mutually exclusive of another.

Aschely Vaughan Cone (b. San Antonio, TX 1985) recently graduated from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art with an MFA in Painting. In 2007 she received a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, studying classics and philosophy; in 2012 she received an MA in Art History from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. She has also studied at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, the Chautauqua School of Art and the New York Studio School. In 2016, her work was featured in New American Paintings MFA annual edition. Her awards include a matching scholarship for study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the SMCM-MICA Artist House Teaching Fellowship. She was also the recipient of The Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship, which will allow her to travel to Indonesia during the Summer of 2017 to study Indonesian textiles and sacred architecture. Her current body of work investigates ideas of doubleness – entry and obstruction, patterns overlaid and intersecting, acts of veiling. Pivoting between arch/void or shield/form, the works unfold as their patterned surfaces veil, collapse and expand. 

Kyle Bauer

Kyle Bauer

metaphorical references to navigation

My current body of work combines metaphorical references to navigation with mixed media sculptural forms. Each sculpture is conceived with an adherence to the formalist perspective of objects, and my intention is to convey balance, tension, and control. The individual works are oriented to aid viewer as they navigate the gallery space.

My visual library, language, and material knowledge come from my history with restoration and preservation, particularly of houses and furniture. By using singular objects and their imagery in repetition, I break down objects into what I understand to be their purest representational forms. I compose my sculptures by arranging, stacking, and piling—trusting the instincts of building. In many cases, I let the objects dictate their own forms. I derive pleasure from this act of construction and enjoy how this process provides multiple layers of meaning through the use of color, surface, pattern, and form.

Kyle Bauer moved to Baltimore after earning his MFA from Louisiana State University in 2011. Since 2012, he has been the conservation technician of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. He recently completed a three-year residency at Baltimore Clayworks and is a 2014 Sondheim Artscape Prize finalist, a 2015 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant Award recipient, and a finalist for the 2015 Miami University Young Sculptors Competition for the William and Dorothy Yeck Award for which he was awarded third place by juror Ann Barlow, executive director of art in General NYC. He has had recent exhibitions at the Walters Art Museum, Vox Populi, Flashpoint Gallery, Randall Scott Projects, McDaniel College, Arlington Art Center, School 33 Art Center, and Maryland Art Place. Since 2011, Bauer’s mixed-media sculptures and installations have been featured in more than 30 exhibitions in the Mid-Atlantic region and internationally at Galway, Ireland, at The Shed. He was also invited to present at MAP Gallery’s THIRTY speaker series, a program that brings attention to 30 emerging Baltimore artists under the age of 30.