Rachel Abrams, Robin Arnold, Dodd Holsapple, Michael Kunzinger, Lusmerlin, and Harin Song

Rachel’s studio practice is centered on environmental concerns. Action and consequence are addressed through works focused on endemic versus nonnative flora and fauna, accumulations and tolerances, often through a holistic use of materials. Many of their earlier pieces addressed invasive species, particularly the ones we choose to introduce to our environments for their inherent beauty, ones that, as we look at their beauty in the present, pose a danger for the ecological balance of the future. Their current body of work is related to environmental conservation, each series are studies in water: the rapid disappearance of glaciers and sea ice, the positive impact of restorative aquaculture, the bleaching of coral reefs, the accumulated pollution levels in sediment, the fossil evidence of long ago waters now desert. Many of these works are partially or wholly constructed from reclaimed materials from their employer, creating a recycling system where one does not exist.

These paintings reflect Robin’s interest in environmental and cultural issues, and the image/message overload of daily life. The daily noise and misinformation spread by corporations, politics, and Facebook too often divert attention from critical global concerns. In painting, they investigate this content by layering images, diagrams, text, and code. Their interactions suggest further visual and meaningful changes. Robin seeks a fusion of mental and physical space more than a singular focused result. At times they exaggerate color contrasts or build patterns to abrasive levels to draw attention to toxic threats, or climate change. Some works walk a line between lush landscape beauty and the lethal results of human interference. (Is it a tropical paradise, or global warming? …sun on the water, or factory runoff…?) The painting’s final state may raise as many questions as it answers.

Dodd creates artwork examining distinctive composition blended with a maximized color theory set to data driven patterning, mathematics and time executed to verify environmental awareness. Visuals weave through color filled constructions with rigid, measured definitions of space that embrace a highly developed use of method and unique compositional balance culminating to amplify today’s contemporary landscapes in crisis. Creating a recognizable contemporary style, Dodd’s work is bursting with rhythmic and thematic technical visuals that document multiple moments into vivid complex visions. Inspired by research about environmental conditions and scientifically collected data charts Dodd explores art as social response awareness and habitat defender. These engaging works are executed as a true art experience for the viewer telling a visual story with purpose and unexpected movement that deeply invites the audience to look passionately into contemporary fine art spirited by the environmental concerns.

Michael looks for images in reflections that occur on the surface of water, inviting the viewer to examine what they perceive around them each day. Although the dreamlike designs are reminiscent of modern abstract paintings, they are entirely real. The effect is achieved by a combination of ripples in the water, the angle of light, water clarity, and other factors. No oils or digital touch-ups are used; the process begins and ends organically with the art created around us by nature. When seen in context the photographs are realistic and documentary; when taken by themselves they are non-representational and abstract. The difference is in how the viewer sees.

For Lusmerlin, creativity is the process, the experience and the result. Sometimes art is only one of the three, sometimes it is all of them. This is why their work is multidisciplinary and multi-experiential. Creation takes place in the studio, on the road, in public spaces, perhaps as an improvised performance, perhaps as a faithful photograph. It shows their journey of building a new identity as they pick their new labels, travel new states, enter a male-dominated industry, change their language, re-define their womanhood and become unapologetic about their body.

Harin’s practice travels among the categories of painting, sculpture, and craft by transforming acrylic paint’s physical properties. They mix acrylic paint inside of a tube, then squeeze it out to dry, cut the dry ones, and melt the paint grains between the holes of the wire mesh with a heat press machine. The polymer, an acrylic paint binder, melts under heat and sticks to the metal. Press and press to flatten. After going through a series of processes; liquid paint dries into a solid form, liquefies again by melting, and finally solidifies as the temperature goes down; the paint exists squeezing itself into the gap between a wire mesh.