Arts + Literature Laboratory Exhibits

here. Also on exhibit through March 4 and celebrated at this reception are “Awkward” by Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane, and “Naturally” by Austin Moule.

media release: Exhibitions opening January 13: Naturally (Austin Moule); and Queering Rural Spaces (Sarah Stellino). Opening Jan. 17: Awkward (Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane). All closing March 4. A reception will be held on Saturday, February 25 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm; Saturday 12-5pm.

More on the exhibits:

Queering Rural Spaces, a photography exhibition by Sarah Stellino, was curated by Andy Adams in collaboration with FlakPhoto Projects.

Artist statement: This series began as an internal exploration when I contemplated my family's future with my wife. We were considering whether to return to living on a farm or stay in the relative "safety" of a city. In thinking about who was genuinely welcome in rural spaces, I wanted to learn from the queer people who called these places home. Has rurality supported and honored their identity? Do they feel safe and fulfilled? How do they find a sense of community? 

Society's love affair with small-town life led me to speculate how gender and sexuality intersect with the love of rural living. I have traveled to different states for this project to interview and photograph queer farmers. I wanted this underrecognized community to be free to speak their truth and show the nuances of their experiences, so each person's interview is as important as their portrait.

I continue to revisit farmers to go beyond creating a representative picture of them. To achieve this, I have been collaborating with them to visually represent their perspectives and experiences by exploring movement, the cycle of life and death, or the creation of safe home spaces. This ongoing project continues to evolve as the people in the series grow and build community. 

About the artist: Sarah Stellino (b. 1992) is an American photographer who explores queer identity and legacy. Her practice involves large format black and white film that helps to create a formal yet intimate feel in her photographs. Sarah makes all of hersilver gelatin prints by hand in her home darkroom. She lives with her wife in Madison, Wisconsin.

Awkward, an exhibition of work by Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane.

Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane question and nudge forms through material processes. Each generates forms from reconfigured vocabularies in which narratives appear constructed, buried and uncovered in a struggle, and left to stand in an ambivalent state. Rodda’s projects involve reconfiguring innocuous materials such as kitty litter, hair dye, and found YouTube videos to consider forces surrounding the contemporary body. McShane’s drawings, paintings and painted objects often act together in odd configurations which might include corner and floor pieces; the gallery often becomes a tableau of small ceramic, abject grid-forms; irregular-shaped frames; furniture-like forms, and paintings and drawings containing distant, abstracted landscapes. 

Awkward operates as a laboratory of awkwardness. The exhibition is designed to alternate between a rhythm of the moving and the static--between Rodda’s videos and McShane’s book pile “pedestals” with abject ceramic grids. Collaborative works include a loose grid of Rodda and McShane drawings attach to a leaning sheet of plywood, united by their shared color scheme of pink, violet, gray and olive green. Collectively, Awkward operates as a loose constellation of the familiar and unfamiliar, forming vignettes that liberate objects and images from familiar conventions—instead embracing awkwardness.

Liz Rodda (born Sacramento, CA) is an Austin, Texas based artist and Associate Professor at Texas State University, School of Art & Design. She moves between diverse media such as video, sound, installation, and drawing. Her videos are the result of investing found and recorded footage with unintended meanings through montage and installation. At the center of her drawing practice is speed and a reveling in the humility of having a body. 

Her works been screened and exhibited in museums, galleries, and film venues such as The Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, David Shelton Gallery, and the Anthology Film Archives. Residencies include Wassaic, Fountainhead, Experimental Television Center, Vermont Studio Center, Byrdcliffe, and La Napoule (upcoming). She received a BA in English from Willamette University and an MFA in Studio For Interrelated Media from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. 

Kathleen McShane was born in Cleveland, Ohio, spent many years living in New York, Philadelphia, and Detroit, and now lives in a small town equidistant between Austin and Houston, TX. She has a BFA in Painting/Printmaking /Drawing from New York State College of Art and Design at Alfred University, NY and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI. She teaches at Texas State University.

Texas exhibitions include a recent solo exhibition of paintings and objects at Bill Davenport’s Optical Projects Gallery in Houston, TX., shows at SOFA and Big Medium Galleries in Austin,TX and the Drawing Biennial at SCA Rogers Gallery in San Antonio,TX. Her work has been included in exhibitions at The Drawing Center NY, Brooklyn Museum NY, Aldrich Museum CT, Carroll and Sons in Boston MA, Susanne Hilberry Gallery and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit , Nylon Gallery London, Tyrone Guthrie Centre Ireland, and she is represented and shows regularly at Paul Kotula Projects in Detroit. Her work is included in many private and public, national and international collections including Wynn and Sally Kramarsky, Weatherspoon Museum, Fidelity Collection, Entemann Collection Germany, and James Rosenquist. Past Artist Residencies include MacDowell, Millay, Cite des Artes Paris, Tyrone Guthrie Centre Ireland, Frans Masereel Belgium, and upcoming at Montana Artist Refuge and Cité des Artes Paris.

Naturally, an exhibition of work by Austin Moule. 

Artist Statement: The paintings in Naturally sift through my memory of spaces and textures and reimagines them on canvas. Playing with the phenomenon of Face Pareidolia, I arrange of motifs that turn the imagined still life/landscape into a face or mask. I am interested in how we identify with and project ourselves over the objects and spaces we encounter. I see each of the pieces in this show as a unique iteration of the same puzzle, in which each decision is based on the last. Solving these puzzles has become a way for me to reflect on how I relate to, and move through, my environment, experiences, and anticipation of the future.

Austin Moule was born in Charleston, South Carolina and at the age of four his family moved to Fernandina Beach, Florida. Moule received his BFA with a concentration in Printmaking at the University of North Florida, and an MFA with a concentration in painting from University of Wisconsin, Madison. Moule’s work has been exhibited in numerous states across the country, including solo presentations in Florida and Wisconsin. He currently lives and works in Minneapolis MN.