Image courtesy of Tracy Ren. Flyer design by Crystal Dawana.

Landline

September 24-November 12, 2023

Opening Reception: Sunday Sept 24, 2-5pm

Featuring works by: Bimbola Akinbola, Caleb Jamel Brown, Ajit Chauhan, Julio del Rio, Christopher Robin Duncan, Sam Finkelstein, Gordon Hall, Justine Kablack, Em Kettner, Connie Lee, Susan Metrican, Sandra Ono, Sara Osebold, J Rivera Pansa, Mel Prest, Tracy Ren, Julio Rodriguez, and Chris Thorson.

Personal Space presents our second exhibition, Landline, which assembles the work of artists from Atlanta, Northern California, Chicago, Maine, New York, Iowa, and Seattle. Channeling analog modes of communication, these works seem to conjure ethereal portals to another realm while simultaneously rooting themselves in the natural world. Images and objects that transmit ancient relics, spiritual talismans, and imaginative figments manifest through various mastery of shape, form, materiality, texture and color. At once worldly and otherworldly, these works straddle a line etched between past, present, and the unknown.

The exhibition includes two commissioned works as part of Personal Space’s ongoing New Works series: a poem by Cedar Sigo (designed by Connie Lee and printed by Colpa Press) and the gallery’s rotating exterior sign space by Gabriel Garza. A live performance by John Davis will take place during the opening reception. Refreshments generously provided by Village Vallejo.

Landline installation view. Left to right (on walls): Sandra Ono, Susan Metrican, Bimbola Akinbola, Gordon Hall, and Chris Duncan. Left to right (freestanding): Tracy Ren, and Sam Finkelstein. Photo credit: Bessma Khalaf and Jordan Benton.

Landline installation view. Left to Right: Julio del Rio, Julio Rodriguez, Mel Prest, Caleb Jamel Brown, and Justine Kablack. foreground: J Rivera Pansa. Photo credit: Bessma Khalaf and Jordan Benton.

Cedar Sigo, Waving Amaryllis. Designed by Connie Lee and printed by Colpa Press. Commissioned by Personal Space, 2023.

Bimbola Akinbola is an artist, performer, and scholar currently based in Chicago. Her scholarly and artistic work is concerned with the complicated and nagging nature of belonging, queerness, and the concept of family. Incorporating a variety of practices ranging from drawing and painting to rubbing her make-up stained skin across surfaces and durational social dance, her work explores mark-making and performance as modes of organization, remembrance, and repair. Bimbola has a B.A in American Studies and Studio Art from Macalester College, and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an Assistant Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University.

Caleb Jamel Brown (b.1993) is a multidisciplinary artist and plumber from Atlanta, GA. Brown uses a myriad of media, from photography and installation to painting and sculpture, to investigate the intersections of Black American material culture, representation through abstraction, and familial memory. Much of his work is inspired by old vernacular photos from family members, the adornment of Black interior spaces, hand-me-down garments, knick-knacks, and kitschy décor giving his work a devotional quality where the past and lives of elders are preserved and celebrated through objects and artifacts. The utilization of abstraction and vernacular as the foundation for larger cultural narratives is at the core of his practice. Caleb is a 2022 Working Artist Project recipient and a 2020 Mint Leap Year Fellow. He holds a BFA from Valdosta State University and has participated in residencies throughout the United States and abroad including Shandaken: StormKing, New Windsor, NY; Mass MOCA; PATA, Lodz, Poland; Proyecto Ace, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Coleman Arts Center, York, Al; Aviario, Portugal.

Ajit Chauhan (1981) lives in the sanctuary city of San Francisco, California. He works with adults with developmental disabilities, plays with cats & practices tai chi. His work has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London, White Columns NY, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, Asian Art Museum, UC Davis Museum, the Grimm Museum in Berlin, the SONS Museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium, Jack Hanley Gallery, Annarumma Gallery, SVIT Praha, and recently at the KMAC Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. He has an upcoming solo exhibition at Galerie Stadtpark Krems. Ajit Chauhan’s art is in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Saatchi Gallery in London, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the SONS Museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium, the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art & others. He has completed artists residencies in Prague CZ (MeetFactory), Athens Greece (Snehta Residency), Krems Austria (AIR Niederöstereich), Sausalito CA (Headlands Center for the Arts), Woodside CA (Djerassi Resident Artists Program), San Francisco CA (de Young Museum) among others. Ajit Chauhan was the recipient of the TOSA Studio Award, a year long Residency that provided a private studio at Minnesota Street Project and stipend.

Julio del Rio was born in El Tepehuaje, Michoacán, Mexico and immigrated to the United States when he was about 10 years old. He joined NIAD Art Center in 2007 when he was just 19 at the recommendation of his neighbor, close friend, and fellow NIAD artist Luis Estrada. Though it is difficult to conceive of, Julio asserts that he had no artistic inclination prior to joining NIAD. Julio’s reserved demeanor belies his playful art practice. Working mostly in ceramics and drawing, he doesn’t arrive at the NIAD studio with a plan in mind, but rather lets his momentary inspiration guide him. He works at a slow and steady pace, and with a repetition of mark-making that imbues his finished works with a beautifully layered complexity.

Christopher Robin Duncan earned his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and his MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University. He has exhibited nationally and internationally for two decades and is included in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley CA; the Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis MO; the Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento CA; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA.

Sam Finkelstein (b. 1992, New York) lives and works in Rockland, ME. Sam bought their first hammer and chisel on the way up to visit a friend in Thomaston four years ago and has been there carving rocks ever since. The forms they create are another lifecycle in the sequence of boulders birthed by mountains, and mountains birthed by the primordial magma flowing beneath the Earth’s crust. Sam’s use of industrial tools allows them to embody natural geologic processes of transformation at an expedited rate. Wind is channeled through compressed air, water and grit mimic the fluid abrasion that polishes river beds and stones on a shoreline. Sam’s work considers the weight of what we decide to memorialize and the illusion of permanence, while also embracing the humorous and futile activity of banging against a rock in search of answers.

Gordon Hall is a sculptor, performance-maker, and writer based in New York. Hall has presented solo exhibitions at EMPAC (2014), Temple Contemporary (2016), The Renaissance Society (2018), MIT List Visual Arts Center (2018), and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (2019). Hall's sculptures and performances have been exhibited in a variety of group settings including Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010), SculptureCenter (2012), Movement Research (2012), Brooklyn Museum (2014), White Columns (2015), Whitney Museum of American Art (2015), Hessel Museum at Bard College (2015), Art in General (2016), Wysing Arts Centre (2017), Abrons Arts Center (2017), Socrates Sculpture Park (2017), The Drawing Center (2018), David Zwirner New York (2018), Verge Center for the Arts (2019), Center for Maine Contemporary Art (2021), and AIR Gallery (2021).

Hall’s books include Reading Things—Gordon Hall on Gender, Sculpture, and Relearning How To See (Walker Art Center, 2016), AND PER SE AND (Art in General, 2016), Details (Walls Divide Press, 2017), The Number of Inches Between Them (MIT 2019), OVER-BELIEFS, Gordon Hall Collected Writing 2011-2018 (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art/Container Corps, 2019), Other People's Houses (AIR Gallery, 2021), and Circling the Square: Words from END OF DAY (Hesse Flatow, 2021). Since 2011 Hall has directed their artist project the Center for Experimental Lectures which has organized lecture-performance programs at MoMA PS1(2012), Recess (2013, 2014), The Shandaken Project at Storm King Art Center (yearly, 2012 -2016), Interstate Projects (2017), Brooklyn Academy of Music (2017), Artists Space (2020), RISD Museum (2020), Haus Wien, Vienna (2021) and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, producing a series of lectures and seminars in conjunction with the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Justine Kablack is an artist based in Rockland, ME. In 2013, she received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Kablack has had solo exhibitions at Stellarhighway, Brooklyn, NY; Buoy Gallery, Kittery, ME; and SISTERED, Portland, ME. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Rachel Uffner in New York, NY and Mrs. in Queens, NY. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center in 2014 and the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in 2020 and 2023. My current work is inspired by medieval manuscripts, folk art, and country music - assembled together on sheets of paper and rendered in pencil. With delicately wrought frames and densely layered graphite, the work is meticulous and meditative - creating alters to both archaic wisdom and contemporary art. I drove across the country and back earlier this year, which has additionally informed the work I've been making most recently. Utilizing personal photographs, bumper stickers, billboards, seasonal flora and regional lore as source material - the end result functions as a record of time, place, and emotion.

Em Kettner (b. 1988, Philadelphia, PA) makes miniature drawings, tapestries, and sculptures that seek the humor and power in our most vulnerable moments. Her recurring cast of characters merge together in sex, birth, and sickbeds—in each case insisting that nothing is too sacred to be comical, or to be shared. Recent solo exhibitions include “Sick Joke” at Chapter (New York, NY) and “Slow Poke” at François Ghebaly Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). Her sculptures are currently featured in "Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through July 2025. Em’s work has been reviewed and published in ArtForum, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Contemporary Art Review LA (CARLA), HyperAllergic, Institutional Model, Sixty Inches From Center, and Fulcrum Arts: Sequencing. She earned her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Em is represented by François Ghebaly Gallery in Los Angeles and New York.

Connie Lee was born in San Diego, CA and received her BA in studio art from Mills College. There she was recipient of the Wellhausen Family Award and the Center for the Book Award for Excellence in Book Art. Her current practice includes drawing and printmaking as mediums for reshaping past experiences, often by centering the tactile details of significant events and domestic interiors. In recent years she has exhibited in group shows throughout the Bay Area and currently enjoys contributing illustrations to poetry and short story publications.

Susan Metrican is an artist living and working in Fairfield, IA via Boston, NYC, Toronto, and Bangkok. Metrican received an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014. Metrican’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions nationally; Rivalry Projects (NY), Tracey Morgan Gallery (NC), Maharishi University (IA), SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017 (NY), Able Baker Contemporary (ME), GRIN Contemporary (RI), Proof Gallery (MA), Boston Center for the Arts (MA), Field Projects (NY), Knockdown Center (NY), and Gallery Protocol (FL). Metrican has an artist edition with Drawer NYC (NY), and has been featured in Cream City Review and ART MAZE Mag. She is one of four founding members of kijidome, an experimental project space and collaborative in Boston, MA (2013-2017). She was the Curator at the Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) from 2014-2022.

Sandra Ono is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Berkeley, California. Ono has exhibited in Texas, New York, and throughout California. She has completed residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, University of Texas at Dallas, Southern Exposure, Vermont Studio Center, Mascot Studio, Minnesota Street Project as a recipient of the TOSA Studio Award, and Kala Art Institute as a recipient of the Kala Fellowship Award.

Sara Osebold is a visual artist based in Seattle who works in sculpture and drawing. She received her BFA from University of Washington in printmaking and MFA from Pratt Institute (NY) in sculpture. Her works reside in private collections in the US and overseas. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Boston, New Haven (CT), Portland (OR), Japan, The Netherlands and various art venues in Seattle and within the state of Washington. She continues her childhood pursuit of collecting rocks with exceptional textures.

J Rivera Pansa (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist based in Huichin Ohlone Land, Oakland, CA. Their work incorporates sculpture, text, and performance as an expansive "grid" field tethering form and reflections on humanistic systems regarding modular seriality and contemporary capital structures. Rivera Pansa completed their BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley and has shown work at Pied-à-terre (San Francisco, CA), Nook Gallery (Oakland, CA), / (Slash) Art (San Francisco, CA), Best Western Gallery (Santa Fe, NM), NIAD Art Center (Richmond, CA), Lane Meyer Projects (Denver, CO), BAMPFA (Berkeley, CA) among others.

Mel Prest is an American abstract artist whose work is focused on color and perceptual visual relationships. Her work is held in private and public collections internationally. As an independent curator, Prest has organized shows across California and New York, and from Amsterdam to Zagreb. My paintings and glass pieces are inspired by nature, which is always changing. I highlight these ephemeral moments by using fluorescent, metallic, or phosphorescent material and mica that flickers, glows or is shadowed in different light conditions.The feeling of slipping time and optical confusion remind the viewer that you are seeing something unknown reveal itself, become something in front of you.

Tracy Ren is a visual artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Though they work primarily in sculpture, their practice is multidisciplinary and ever expanding. To date, their thinking has taken shape through drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and installation, often in various combinations with one another. Craft traditions, the culture, wisdom, and magic of their ancestry, and the poetics of materials, structures, and space all converge in their attempt to bridge the physical to the spiritual.

Ren received their BFA in Ceramics from California College of the Arts in 2018. They have since shown work in galleries across the Bay Area, including Jessica Silverman Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, Cone Shape Top, Dream Farm Commons, Pt. 2 Gallery, Graduate Theological Union, and CTRL+SHFT, among others. They have participated in numerous residencies around the country, and have been invited to give talks at Creative Growth, Mills College, and UC Berkeley.

Julio Rodriguez is a visual artist born and raised in the SF Bay Area. He received his BA in Studio Art/ Art History from San Francisco State University in 2016. He has exhibited in several group shows locally and currently works in the Exhibitions department at NIAD Art Center in Richmond, CA.

Chris Thorson Drawing upon conventions of trompe l'oeil and the readymade, Chris Thorson uses a range of materials and methods to remake ordinary objects such as toiletries, food, and clothing to address themes of consumption, illusion and vulnerability. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Quint Gallery in San Diego, CA; Ampersand International Gallery in San Francisco in San Francisco, CA; Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, CA; Mama’s in Vallejo, CA; and The Napa Valley Museum in Yountville, CA. Group exhibitions include Subsidiary Projects in London, UK, The Hessel Museum at Bard College; Des Lee Gallery at Washington University in St.Louis; and Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA. Her work has been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Riverfront Times, Art Practical, KQED, SFAQ, and New American Paintings. She received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA at San Francisco Art Institute. She lives and works in Vallejo, CA.