HERE: LOCAL / NON-LOCAL
May 30, 2019 - Sept 9, 2019

Iteration #1: Kristin Miller Hopkins, Jason LeVan, Sammi McLean, Cynthia Stucki, Amber Tutwiler 
May 30 - July 5, 2019
Installation by Cynthia Stucki
OPENING THURSDAY, MAY 30, 5-8pm
Palm Beach State College, Gardens Campus

Iteration #2: Mumbi O’Brien, Michelle A.M. Miller, Michael Dillow, R.J. Rodriguez, Jason LeVan, Sammi McLean, Cynthia Stucki
July 11 - July 22, 2019
Performance and Installation by Mumbi O’Brien
OPENING THURSDAY, JULY 11, 5-8pm
Palm Beach State College, Gardens Campus

Iteration #3: R.J. Rodriguez, Michael Dillow, Michelle A.M. Miller, Amber Tutwiler, Jason LeVan, Sammi McLean 
July 22 - September 9, 2019
Installation by R.J. Rodriguez
CLOSING CEREMONY AND DISCUSSION, Wednesday, September 4, 5-8pm


ABOUT //

Palm Beach State College is pleased to present HERE (LOCAL / NON-LOCAL), an exhibition curated and organized by members of H/OURS Collective, an organization of artists that focus on a diverse range of visual arts research. For this exhibition, members wanted to discuss the idea of locality from a broad range of conceptual grounds. Locality is most commonly defined as 1) belonging or relating to a particular area or neighborhood, typically exclusively so, and/or 2) the condition of having a location in space and time.

Sticking to these definitions, artists Michael Dillow, Cynthia Stucki, and Kristin Miller Hopkins are working with the South Florida landscape directly, revealing the subtle influences that affect the relationship between place, psychology, and memory. Within those definitions, locality can be interpreted more directly; Jason LeVan confronts “here” by working directly with the architecture of the gallery. There is also potential for abstracted representations through the lens of digital places, evoked memories, or utopian visions. Originally inspired by specific places or moments, Amber Tutwiler, Sammi McLean, and Michelle A. M. Miller discuss these alternative or non-local spaces, while Ricardo Rodriguez and Mumbi O’Brien confront utopian versions of reality.

Unlike traditional exhibitions, HERE challenges the idea that galleries must stay static and unmoving. Every few weeks, subtle changes will be made in the gallery, embracing the entropy that occurs naturally in any place. As the gallery lives in a constant state of movement, each change will be documented and catalogued.

HERE (LOCAL / NON-LOCAL) will open May 30, 2019 from 5-8pm. Subsequent openings for various installations will take place on July 11, 2019 (Mumbi O’Brien will be performing) and September 4, 2019 (installation by R.J. Rodriguez). 

PULSE
March 1 & 2, 2019
Kravis Center, Persson Hall, West Palm Beach, FL

Collaboration between Amber Tutwiler and Lauren Carey of Ballet Florida
Creative Designer: Amber Tutwiler
Choreography: Lauren Carey
Costume Design: RogerThat and Mumbi O’Brien
Performance Time: 20 minutes
Sound and Music: Amber Tutwiler, William Basinski, Olafur Arnalds, Forest Swords, Amon Tobin
Performed by: Lauren Carey, Emily Chu, Melinda Rawlinson, Vanessa Rosen, Alyssa Thompson, Kevin Franc
Video Filmed and Edited by David Hamzik

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HOLDING PATTERN

AUGUST 3 – AUGUST 27, 2018

CHRISTINA HUMPHREYS
SAMMI MCLEAN
ASHLEY ORTIZ-DIAZ

The H/OURS Collective and the FRITZ Gallery are pleased to present HOLDING PATTERN, an exhibition featuring printmaking and embroidery work by Christina Humphreys, Sammi McLean, and Ashley Ortiz-Diaz.

HOLDING PATTERN navigates the various circuitous routes we take from one destination to another. Converging on suspended activity in these transitional environments, this body of work includes embroidery, printmaking and installation. Each artist wavers between traditional imagery, and experimental processes that expose the making of itself. Christina Humphreys painstakingly embroiders abstract digital images that resemble known surfaces; Sammi McLean treats layered fabrics with repeating text as a communication device; Ashley Ortiz-Diaz uses ephemeral printmaking techniques to contemplate mortality via known geometric forms. Trapped in the in-between of these routes, each artist is seeking permission to advance in HOLDING PATTERN.

The opening night will take place on Friday, August 3, from 6-9pm. The Fritz Gallery is located upstairs at 1608 S. Dixie Hwy in West Palm Beach. There will a $5 donation at the door. For more information, please feel free to email hourscollectivewpb@gmail.com, or call (561) 352-1925. For a private viewing, please email amber@hourscollective.org.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS ||

Christina Humphreys (b. 1990, San Francisco, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist originally from Florida. Working in a variety of media, her work employs textile arts, painting, and digital media to investigate contemporary anxieties surrounding technology and gender. Utilizing seemingly mundane materials, images and words, she simultaneously evokes the sentimental and technological to reflect on themes of perception in the digital age. She is currently living and working in San Francisco, CA. She received her BFA in Studio Art from University of South Florida in 2013.

Sammi McLean (b. 1989, Lake Worth, FL) was born and raised in South Florida. She is a hybridized maker, working with sculpture and new technology through the lens of printmaking. Assuming there is some hidden pattern or code to unmask in our experiences, Mclean's work makes connections by forging a path to a piece that is missing, or by creating some semblance of intimacy with familial objects and imagery. Embracing chance, her imagery is fragmented and layered to create misrepresentations of information that oscillates between memories and documented experiences. McLean received her MFA from Florida Atlantic University in Printmaking and has been awarded the Lynn Travis Stendor Women in the Visual Arts Scholarship, Rothenberger Fellowship and the Friedland Project Grant.

Ashley Ortiz-Diaz (b. 1991, Gainesville, FL) is a printmaker focusing on visual methods that address mortality. Using geometric forms that resemble places of rest, her work is a meditation on eternal place. The point, the line and the plane are the foundation of Euclidean geometry and how we’ve come to understand abstract space. Ashley Ortiz-Diaz is a current MFA candidate at University of Florida in Gainesville. Ortiz-Diaz’s driving force in creating work in this vein is to take the taboo out of open conversations about death and dying.

FLAT

JULY 20, 2018 – JULY 27, 2018

RYAN DIGHT+ SURREALUX
SEBASTIAN BRUNO-HARRIS
MICHAEL DILLOW            
ATES ISILDAK
CRISTINA KOLOZSVARY-KISS
KATELYN SPINELLI
AMBER TUTWILER

The H/OURS Collective, a newly formed collaborative of emerging artists, opens their first exhibition, FLAT, on Friday, July 20, 2018, from 6 to 10 PM, at the Fritz Gallery in West Palm Beach. The inaugural exhibit features work by Michael Bucuzzo and Surrealex (a New York based artist collective), Sebastian Bruno-Harris, Michael Dillow, Ates Isildak, Cristina Kolozsvary-Kiss, Katelyn Spinelli, and Amber Tutwiler.

FLAT is a video-based exhibition that ranges from traditional narrative to moving image installation. Each artist in the exhibition presents work that harnesses the avant-garde spirit of new media. Video art emerged as a legitimate medium in the 1960’s and has been popularized by available high and low technologies. As television and video have become the most widespread means of communication, artists have challenged, embraced, and repurposed the functions and forms of moving images. While some videos consider the invasive nature of the transmitted moving image in society’s psyche, others explore the medium’s potential to capture temporal, surreal imagery other artistic media cannot. FLAT is concerned with both the confines and capacities of new media; in the flatness of the walls, a depth is excavated, creating the capacity for experience and transportation.

Of a few samples of what to expect, Fringe Dream(2016), bySebastian Bruno-Harris, confronts the viewer with a hard, metallic moving surface that slowly begins to melt. The solid door-like shape evaporates and progresses into an empty purple-hued and, potentially infinite, space. Katelyn Spinelli in Single Use, You (2018) uses the ground as a site of projection, while sharing the sentiment, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like this, it wasn't meant to come out like this, it's coming out like this.” Michael Bucuzzo, functioning as an extension of the artist collective Surrealux, will be partnering with Cristina Kolozsvary-Kiss to create an immersive video installation that requires viewer participation.

FLAT will be on view at the Fritz Gallery in West Palm Beach from July 20 to July 27. The exhibition’s opening on Friday, July 20 runs from 6 to 10pm. There will a $5 donation at the door. The Fritz Gallery is located upstairs at 1608 S. Dixie Hwy in West Palm Beach. For more information, please feel free to visit www.hourscollective.org, email hourscollectivewpb@gmail.com, or call (561) 352-1925.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sebastian Bruno-Harris (b. 1991, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a visual artist born in Puerto Rico and raised in Buenos Aires. He studied at Florida Atlantic University, earning his BFA in sculpture in 2016. Through a practice in sculpture and drawing, his work explores a phenomenological inquiry of space and perception. Sebastian has exhibited at the FAU Theater Lab, as well as the 2016 Juried Student Exhibition at the Ritter Art Gallery.

Michael Dillow (b. 1988, Philadelphia, PA) earned his BA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University (2010) and is currently a pursuing an MFA in Visual Arts at Florida Atlantic University (2019). Dillow’s work examines the transient landscape of South Florida, which aims to develop a conversation about humanity’s complex relationship to place, to community, and to the spaces we occupy. Most recently his work was exhibited at the Center for Fine Art Photography, in group exhibition titled, Photography as Response, and was interviewed as a featured artist in Fisheye Magazine, a photography publication based in Paris, France.

Ates Isildak (b. 1984, West Palm Beach, FL) is an emerging artist from South Florida. His work is often collagelike, blending digital video, stop-motion photography, graphic design and sketches into disorienting narratives that challenge the male gaze. Focusing on the local art scene, he has participated in many venues on downtown Clematis. His work has been featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, and the Lake Worth Cultural Council.

Cristina (Tina) Kolozsvary-Kiss(b. 1987, Miami, FL) was raised on the exotic sands of South Florida. An indefatigable dreamer, she learned early that making films was a salubrious way to live in a world of pure fantasy. She works in the industry producing and directing corporate and commercial video for clients such as Violette Fr, Este Lauder, Nylon Mag and Rimmel Cosmetics. Cristina has exhibited her works internationally and has received the Emerging Artist Fellowship at the Jacob Burns Film Center, and the Princess Grace Honoraria Award.

Katelyn Spinelli (b. 1987, West Palm Beach, FL) is a South Florida born artist. Spinelli received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2009, and her MFA in Graphic Design at Yale School of Art (2018).

Ryan Dight + Surrealux (New York City, NY) is a collective of artists who work with mediums of documentation — still and moving images captured on film, digital and analog technologies. Collaborating on projects and working individually on personal projects, the members of Surrealux have exhibited across the United States and Europe.

Amber Tutwiler (b. 1988, West Palm Beach, FL) is an interdisciplinary artist who works across oil painting, sculpture/installation, audio, and video. Her work is a meditation on interface and embodiment in technology. She has won various awards, including the Women in Visual Arts Scholarship and the Williamsburg Painting Award. She was accepted into the Women Cinemaker’s 2018 Biennale, and will be published in the next edition of Independent Women’s Cinema Magazine in Berlin.

IN SIGHT

JUNE 16 – JULY 14, 2018

The Fritz Gallery is pleased to present IN SIGHT, an exhibition featuring Michael Dillow and Jason LeVan. Dillow and LeVan both share a preoccupation with modes of perception. Through a phenomenological inquiry into objects, space and place, the artists’ in this exhibition exploit our perception of the ordinary. Dillow uses analog photography to intervene with landscape and community, invoking anxiety, longing, and displacement. LeVan uses sculpture to challenge how we interact with and around utilitarian objects, creating physical incongruity with otherwise banal objects. With the intention to interrogate the conventional function of what is around us, the work invokes a tangible ambiguity, forcing us to reconcile our site of perception.  

MICHAEL DILLOW (b. 1988) is a photographer born from Philadelphia, PA. He earned his BA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University (2010) and is currently a pursuing an MFA in Visual Arts at Florida Atlantic University (2019). Dillow’s work examines the transient landscape of South Florida. Through a survey of surrounding facades, his photographic work aims to develop a conversation about humanity’s complex relationship to place, to community, and to the spaces we occupy. In these sites,  the landscape serves as a vehicle for expressing concepts of displacement, longing, and shifting identities. Most recently his work was exhibited at the Center for Fine Art Photography, in group exhibition titled, Photography as Response, and was interviewed as a featured artist in Fisheye Magazine, a photography publication based in Paris, France.

JASON LEVAN (b. 1984) a visual artist and sculptor originally from Philadelphia, PA. He earned his BFA in Studio Arts from West Chester University of Pennsylvania (2010) and is currently a pursuing an MFA in Visual Arts at Florida Atlantic University (2020). LeVan’s work questions the non-tangible, meta-qualities of materials related to the perceived functionality that his objects encompass. Left open to interpretation, his work remains intentionally ambiguous. Working in the tradition of bricolage, his studio practice merges the rigors of conceptual art with techniques of high-craft. Most recently, LeVan was a recipient of the Rothenberger Scholarship and was nominated for the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

IN SIGHT will open on Saturday, June 16, from 6pm-9pm. The Fritz Gallery is located upstairs at 1608 S. Dixie Hwy in West Palm Beach. For gallery hours, a private appointment, or further information, please feel free to email adtutwiler@gmail.com.