Press Release - Katrina Sánchez: Mending Joy

Katrina Sánchez

May 31 - July 16, 2023

Installation view: Mending Joy

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery proudly presents Mending Joy, the gallery’s first solo exhibition by fiber artist Katrina Sánchez. In the exhibition, Sánchez explores themes of joy, repair, and responsive choice through her signature tactile “magnified weavings” Mending Joy is a labor of love in which Sánchez has given herself time and space to prioritize finding joy despite past experiences and trauma related to the current political climate. Through this new body of artwork, she has given herself space physically to explore new concepts, textures, colorways, and visual language. The result is monumental, playful, interactive, and restorative.

The artwork on view emphasizes Sánchez’s embrace of power through choice. Vibrant weavings hang from the ceiling, walls, and dot the floors, set against a saturated wall gradient to fully encapsulate the viewer in an intentional unification of subject and canvas. Lush greens and neon pinks pull influence directly from the rainforests of Sánchez’s native Panama. Looking closely at the variation in knit structures, the viewer experiences a cadence of breath as the knit stitches open and close, imparting a sense of vitality on the entire room. In her new series of “poufs,” Sánchez offers a seat to the viewer, allowing an experience of strength and energy passed through these objects. The poufs have a liveliness to them, growing up from the ground and accelerating the artist’s intention of engaging a three-dimensional space through soft sculpture. While the magnified weavings are dimensional, the poufs push color and texture even further into space. These spheres of joy are made to be fun, pleasant, and functional; unique pieces that challenge the concept of traditional furniture.

Katrina Sánchez, Escalando Montañas, 2023. Knitted yarn, fiberfill. 42 x 80 in. Image courtesy of Da Nam.

The large magnified weavings on the walls and ceilings offer the viewer a sensory effect of playful confrontation: often the size of humans or larger, it is impossible to avoid interacting with them. Her current body of work is deeply influenced by her early small-scale fiber works, which involved mending clothing by weaving with needle and thread as a restorative practice to process lived experiences and trauma, including the aftermath of a school campus mass shooting. Sánchez considers stress and trauma to be universally shared experiences, as we all go through events that deeply challenge us. Her ambition with her work is to share playful, tactile works that offer optimism to viewers. Sánchez works with scale, texture, color, and touch to explore emotion and the relationships between our physical environments and ourselves.

Katrina Sánchez, Mending Joy, 2023. Knitted yarn, fiberfill. 25 x 30 in. Image courtesy of Da Nam.

Smaller weavings offer a platform for invention, where Sánchez experiments with new textures. Her newest mohair weavings seem to vibrate from across the room, looking hazy and grandly soft, tender and weightless. In a conscious effort to engage with a more sustainable material, a loose knit encapsulates a new type of filling: upcycled clothing. A closer inspection achieves a more intimate exchange as the artist allows visitors to physically engage with the work through the sense of touch.“I really enjoy when people can touch the Magnified Weavings I make,” says Sánchez, “sometimes, some spaces insist that people refrain from touching any of the artwork, but it’s often one of the first things I hear from people, ‘I just want to touch it!’ and I think it is really satisfying when they can. It's fulfilling that curiosity, sense of play and tactility. That for me is important for the work; letting the viewer indulge in that desire to feel and explore the work through another sense. It also breaks a barrier between myself as the artist with the viewer by enabling them to experience the work in a way like I do. The work is plush and flexible, it gets pushed and pulled and even sat on in the studio and it’s not very fragile so I feel like, why safeguard that experience for only myself or some people?”

Katrina Sánchez (b. 1995, Panama City, Panama) received a BA in Spanish-Hispanic Studies and a BFA in Fibers from the University of North Carolina (Charlotte). She exhibited her artwork at Spring Break Art Show LA (2022). She has exhibited her work most recently at venues such as bG Gallery (Santa Monica), Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston), Goodyear Arts (Charlotte, NC), SOCO Gallery (Charlotte, NA), and the Mint Museum Randolph. Her work has been reviewed by Untitled Magazine, Artnet News, Hyperallergic, Art and Cake, and Whitewall Art. Sánchez lives and works in Charlotte, NC.

Press Release: Standing Still

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr | Wilhelm Neusser

April 26 - May 28, 2023

Installation view: Standing Still

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present Standing Still, a two-person exhibition featuring the artwork of Mishael Coggeshall-Burr and Wilhelm Neusser. Coggeshall-Burr and Neusser use painterly techniques to capture a strong sense of place and time that tie particularly to memory; memories the artists themselves have connected to these landscapes, and ones they aim to evoke in their viewers. Neusser’s serene evening skies and Coggeshall-Burr’s blurred cityscape compositions present an opportunity to slow down and focus on the here and now.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Franz-Joseph II, 2023. Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 in.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr integrates photography and oil painting to create novel and compelling images on canvas. Taking blurred shots with a 35mm camera, the artist captures memories often collected when he travels. The resulting images offer a distant yet immersive perception of places that are significant to him. The series on view includes imagery from very different stages in his life: Paris, Budapest, and Ukraine. In his Parisian scenes, the attention is on movement: the tension of starting a journey and being seduced by the unknown, by the way our eyes catch light when our bodies explore a new setting. His more recent works draw from his trips to Ukraine during the ongoing conflict with Russia. Coggeshall-Burr has been deeply involved in contributing to refugee aid with his wife Nadya, who started a non-profit in 2022. Offering complex but hopeful images, these layered memories mimic that desire to pause and slow down when the world keeps revolving around you, even when standing still. Coggeshall-Burr’s two most recent works feature the proud Franz Joseph - now “Freedom” bridge; trolley rails and bridge iron glowing a rainbow in the late light, a crisscross of golden clouds, street lamps just about to light. He reflects: “Nadya and I spent a few days exploring Budapest in November before she continued on to Ukraine for her Project Nadiya work, I back to children (and day job). The bridge was near our apartment, an art deco lattice of old cast iron and green paint, in the evenings teenagers collected from nearby universities, snapping selfies and jostling. It’s hard to put it into words, but this bridge felt like a kind of energy center for this area of the city, a magnet for youth, some kind of magic in it.”

Wilhelm Neusser, Nightglow (2305), 2023. Oil on linen. 40 x 36 in.

Wilhelm Neusser is a contemporary painter, known for his strikingly moody landscapes, rich in texture. In his newest series of Starry Nights, Neusser takes a familiar motif often used in his cranberry paintings and recalibrates the technique: paint drips morph from bright red cranberries to bright white stars set against a dark sky. Neusser thinks of this technique as central to his painterly language, and in a recent studio visited noted: “I’m simply using similar words to create different poems.” The technique itself of splattering paint on his finished canvas is somewhat random, an irony in the relationship humans have long had with constellations, their meaning and their seemingly fixed place in relation to the Earth. The serenity of these resulting scenes offers us a chance to stand still under these changing skies. Contrasting the deep blues and purples of the Starry Night series are Neusser’s Marshes, fiery red and orange landscapes that aim to push the romantic landscape towards a somewhat apocalyptic and anxious atmosphere. As with many of his landscapes, they are a memory of place and time - a dramatic scene Neusser recalls from his commute home from Montserrat during a teaching semester. For Neusser, “A landscape painting is a metaphorical space that invites the eye and mind to wander and wonder, and for the viewer to project.”

Building layered compositions, Mishael Coggeshall-Burr’s and Wilhelm Neusser’s paintings draw from memories and feelings summoned by different places and moments in their lives. In Neusser’s worlds, scenes are presented with a meticulous precision, creating a distance from the viewer. As a result, the landscape appears magnified, hyperrealist; like a flashbulb memory that directs the spotlight to reveal what gets our attention over what goes unnoticed. On the contrary, Coggeshall-Burr conceives blurred, vague memories, as if we were seeing them in the process of being forgotten. The resulting artworks immerse the viewer in these places, even when they may be unknown for them. The artists capture the images that lay on our eyelids right before we blink and the dichotomy of feeling all at once distant yet close by. Together, the artists start a dialogue that questions our relationship with landscape and its ability to engage us in a moment of recollection.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr studied painting at Middlebury College, The Glasgow School of Art, and the Art Students League in New York. His artistic adventures have led him to many countries and continents, including China, Tibet and Nepal, where he garnered images for a show in Kazakhstan; London, UK, where he made his own art and installed a variety of artwork at the Tate Galleries for several years; Mozambique, where he met his amazing yogini wife Nadya; Germany, France, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Central America and the Caribbean, with many images from his travels featured in his art exhibitions. He lives, works and paints in Montague, MA with his wife and four children.

Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe with Professors Gerd van Dülmen und Harald Klingelhöller. He was also a guest student in art history and theory at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe with Professors Hans Belting und Siegfried Gohr. After his studies, Neusser lived and worked in Cologne until his relocation to the United States in 2011. His recent museum exhibitions include the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 2019), the Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA, 2019), and MASS MoCa (North Adams, MA, 2018). In 2020 and 2022 he was honored with a finalist grant in Painting from the Mass Cultural Council. Neusser’s work has been included in notable publications, including The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Boston.com, and Big Red & Shiny. He lives and works in Somerville, MA.

Curators Spotlight: Mallory Ruymann & Leah Triplett Harrington

Mallory Ruymann (left) and Leah Triplett Harrington (right) at the opening of their exhibition, shape _ shifting _ support _ systems at Praise Shadows, summer 2022.

Kaylee Hennessey: We’re thrilled to be joined today by Mallory Ruymann and Leah Triplett Harrington, two Boston based curators who recently teamed up to curate “A Romance Of…” at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery. We wanted to get to know you better as curators, and I just want to lead off by saying that you have both been a dream to work with, we've had so much fun during this show, and thank you!
So first off, we'd love to hear how you two met and how you decided to work together.

Mallory Ruymann: Kaylee, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. And thank you so much to you, Mariana, and Abigail for being incredible partners on this exhibition. We couldn't think of a better team to work with.
Speaking of relationships, Leah, how did we meet again?

Leah Triplett Harrington: I totally agree! It's been such a wonderful opportunity to get to work with the whole team at AOG, and it's been really fun to work with an all women team - aside from our male identifying installer, the entire exhibition team has been woman-identifying.
Mallory and I met at a gathering called the Society of Contemporary Art Historians - the Boston Chapter - almost 10 years ago now, and really enjoyed each other's company and conversation from the get-go. We’ve been friends since.

Mallory: Navigating the relationships the come with working in the contemporary art space can be challenging. When you find people that are cheerleaders for you, that lift you up, support you, and mentor you, it’s incredibly special. Leah was leading several writing projects, including Big, Red & Shiny, as well as a project called The Rib. She had asked me to write a few reviews for her, and that's when we first started collaborating professionally.

For both of our practices, it is so helpful whenever you're publishing something or putting something out into the world to have additional eyes on it, and being able to reach out to ask: “Does this sound the way I want it to sound?” Leah has always been that person for me, and I trust her to see the parts of my work that are incomplete. We started traveling for research and going to art fairs together, too, but during the pandemic that all stopped. Our dear friend Matt Murphy started hosting something called Painters Conference on Zoom. We both were fascinated by this behind-the-scenes glimpse into the practices of some of the most exciting painters working in the United States today, and it made us think about how we would talk about our curatorial, research, and writing practices. From there, we came up with a few show ideas together, and presented one to Matt’s group.

Leah: All of these shows have then explored our perception and thinking about the femme body and what it's like to be a femme - identifying person in the 21st century: how we contend with the body, the screen, and how we navigate craft or tradition to construct these dialogues. Mallory has been a wonderful partner on many, many projects, always eager to jump into anything that I crazily say yes to. We also come at things with a very complementary skill set and perspective, bringing our different professional experiences together.

Our curatorial vision is distinct, but parallel. I think we're both interested in artists who are contending with some of the issues, topics or themes that we're thinking about. In A Romance Of… for example, Mallory suggested installing Elspeth’s work, which is very much dealing with architecture, windows, and portals, in conversation with the gallery’s windows, a spatially thoughtful decision. I just love how we can bring our own perspectives into one cohesive vision.

Installation view: A Romance Of… at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, exhibited Jan. 5 - Feb. 12, 2023 and curated by Mallory Ruymann and Leah Triplett Harrington

Kaylee: I have just been so in awe working with both of you, and how this amazing friendship has translated into something so professionally wonderful. I would also like to acknowledge that this exhibition was a passion project, and that you both have full time jobs outside of this curatorial collaboration. Can you each describe what you do day to day?

Mallory: Essentially, I'm a curator and art advisor in my day job. I'm the managing partner of art_works, where we build significant collections of contemporary art. We work with private clients to shape their collections through the lens of specific art historical interests in dialogue with the global contemporary art market. The other side of the business involves building out corporate collections and art programs. In this space, we primarily work with artists local to wherever our client is located. I oversee the day-to-day management of company operations, the finances, the team, manage client relations, and make sure we are all doing the best possible work we can for our clients, the artists we work with, and for ourselves. And every day is different. I'm constantly visiting constructions sites, framers, traveling to see art in real life, meeting with clients, meeting with artists in their studios. It's an active and exciting practice.

Leah: I am a curator at Now + There. We're a nonprofit for temporary and site-specific work, hence our name. We curate and produce around four projects a year, typically over the summer months, given our climate in New England, and we're only working in the city of Boston. We were founded eight years ago to really shift the culture in Boston, and to open up spaces and conversation that needed to be had through contemporary art that just happened to be outside.

All of our projects are open 24/7, totally free, and accessible. I work with local artists, most particularly in this role through something called the Public Art Accelerator, which is a pathway for studio artists based in Greater Boston to be able to create and be active in the public art realm. The Accelerator guides them in taking their studio practice into the outdoor public space, navigating all the challenges therein. We work with Accelerator artists over the course of a six-month workshop series, during which   they propose a project for $25,000 in funding.

Kaylee: So then thinking about the work that you do with public art through Now + There, how does that impact your curatorial vision in the private sector, like our gallery space?

Leah: I'm so grateful for my experience working in public realm because, to me,  there’s is such a profound difference between curating something for an interior space. Inside, visitors are making the active choice to come in and see an exhibition, versus an outdoor space, where people don’t always have that choice. Public art work could be in their bus stop, the park where they walk their dog every day, it might be literally in their path while walking to work. That's really a powerful kind of distinction between working inside and outside, full of possibility and challenges.

So, working in the public realm has helped me be more audience-forward in exhibition making. What is going to make a show or installation welcoming? What is going to make someone see this as a destination, rather than artwork already existing in a space? I think of exhibitions as map or map-making to intentionally entice people ito space.

Kaylee: I just want to quickly note that you both put together an incredible exhibition catalog for A Romance Of… that has been very impactful for visitors and has provided a lot of great insight into the way you two have been thinking about this show. Thank you for your partnership in making it happen. Mallory, what was your journey into curatorial work?

Mallory: I feel like it was simultaneously straightforward and very much not so. I'm an art historian by trade and training. And I've also spent 15 years in the art world working every single job under the sun - executive administration, fundraising, education, programming, even running an artist residency. I always knew, though, that I wanted to work with artists in a curatorial context, so I focused in on that work independently no matter what I was doing. While I was pursuing my graduate degree at Tufts University, I was lucky to have a graduate curatorial fellowship in the galleries there, embedded in the work of activating a university collection through exhibition making. It made me think about how to work with objects from across time to best serve the university community and all of the wonderful inter-disciplinary opportunities that come along with that.

I also had a transformative curatorial fellowship at what is now the MassArt Art Museum, which operates something like a Kunsthalle-model. Though embedded in a university, it’s exhibitions and even physical space engaged with the public in a more outward-facing way.

Those experiences taught me that I love working with collections, people, and that I valued education, so art advising felt like the next step. Through curating with Leah, too, I am lucky to experience meaningful connections to artists and the community. We have a complementary approach, as Leah was saying, to curatorial work. I consider myself to be a visual exhibition maker and admire the conceptual-mapping aspect that Leah brings to what we do.

Kaylee: You both have very individual and extensive backgrounds in the arts and I think it really makes for a very interesting and, as you said, complementary foundation for collaboration. On that note, what do you look for in potential collaborators?

Leah: I think collaboration is incredibly difficult as well as extremely gratifying. You want to be working with someone that you can trust with the ideas in relationships that you bring into it.

Foreground: Cathy Della Lucia, Give Me Gravy Tonight, 2022. Plywood, hardwood, stoneware, earthenware, stain, underglaze, hydrocal. 34 x 43 x 18 in.
Background: Elspeth Schulze, Mirrored Split Meander (Palmetto), 2022. Birch plywood, Flashe vinyl paint, linen, gypsum cement. 22 x 95 x 2 in.

Public art, by virtue, is incredibly collaborative. You have to be conversational, transparent with your goals, and responsive to the needs and warrants of those you’re working with.

Regarding personal projects, I tend to be very specific and careful of what those collaborations look like. You have to have an open mind, patience and tenacity, but also a sense of humor about it. That's been a guidepost for Mallory and me, because our collaborations are something we do because we really believe in these artists and we're passionate about these ideas. So we have to have fun with it.

Kaylee: We have definitely recognized and appreciated that humor on our end.

Mallory: Particularly when you're doing something outside of the context of your day job. When it’s your own time, work doesn’t make sense if you're not having fun, if it's not feeding your soul, or making your life richer. Humor helps us to get through moments of confusion or unanticipated challenges. Communication and respect, too, is key. I am lucky because Leah accepts me unconditionally, the good and bad parts, and so I feel very safe in our collaboration, which I think makes its way into the work.

Kaylee: We've been really lucky with this collaboration as well.

And so you've curated for us, you’ve previously curated at Praise Shadows in Brookline. Those are both Boston Area spaces. Do you ever plan to go beyond Boston to other cities? What's next?

Leah: We’d love to expand! We have four or five ideas that, to me, are part of a series. We're very open to the idea and we've been fortunate in our previous collaborations, it's been really wonderful to be invited into these spaces and get to complement what's happening there. So I will say that anyone that has an invitation for us, we're all yours!

Mallory: And I would also like to mention - we do have something happening over this coming summer 2023 at a Boston-area institution. We're so grateful to Praise Shadows and to Abigail Ogilvy Gallery for offering a platform that is in dialogue with institutional art spaces.

Kaylee: As we are running out of time, I have one more question - a parting gift for those reading along. What advice would you give to up-and-coming curators?

Mallory: Meet as many artists as possible. Even if you feel shy (which I frequently do), make the effort of introducing yourself. Try to do a studio visit. Meet that artist’s friends. Get to know as many artists as possible.

Leah: I think that's great advice. I echo that as well.

So the first thing that is probably annoying to hear - I was annoyed by it when I was looking for advice - is to just do it. Real talk, and I hate to say it, but Boston is really challenging. There are so few galleries that when artists do have opportunities in a space, they tend to treat it as they should, which is very seriously, as the stakes are very high. And I wish that we had more spaces where you could just kind of put something up for a weekend and figure out how it's installed, and if it doesn't work, it's no big deal. It’s a great way to learn. I wish that there were these types of spaces for emerging curators as well, to see what it’s like to bring an artwork and artist into a space and create a story around it. It’s super hard to get that experience in a city like Boston, where space is expensive!

But that being said, I would say try not to let that stop you. Try all you can to find artists that you believe in, that you’re interested in having conversations with, and present their work in any way you can. Take advantage of the things that come your way. Ask for advice.

Mallory: Should we list some resources?

Leah: Yes! Gallery 263 has an open curatorial call, as does Cambridge Art Association. Those are two organizations that are eager and keen to work with emerging curators. Fort Point Arts Community has an annual call for exhibitions. Distillery Gallery in South Boston is a great space as well.

Boston Art Review is recording some of these spaces, however transitional they could be, so please check them out for news on different spaces around town.

Kaylee: Thank you both so much for taking the time to chat a little bit. And thank you for all the hard work you've done for this exhibition. It's been a blessing for us. We have loved every moment of it, and will be sad to see it come down on February 12.

Please be sure to keep an eye out for future curatorial collaborations from Leah and Mallory.

Artist Spotlight: Aris Moore

We recently sat down with Aris Moore, who will be part of our upcoming show The Familiars along with Haley Wood, to discuss her artistic practice, her inspiration and her teaching trajectory that led her to become a full time artist.

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery: How did you decide to become an artist and pursue it as a career path? When was the first moment you truly considered yourself an artist?

Aris Moore (photo courtesy of the artist)

Aris Moore: I’m not sure I ever decided.  I’ve just drawn everyday, for as long as I can remember.  My career path after college was to be an art teacher, and I was for 21 years and then, because of some changes at my school I decided to leave teaching and began to spend more time on my work.  I guess now that I am able to draw for hours each day I feel like an artist.  Like for real. Like I was when I was little.

AOG: Where do you draw inspiration for your work? How would you describe the feelings your own work provokes in you?

AM: I think a search for connection and understanding inspires my work.  When I was little I would draw pictures for my favorite grandmother after she passed.  It was a way that I  felt I could communicate with her when I was overwhelmed by her absence.  Looking back, I  realize that I saw art as some sort of magical way to connect.  I think I still do.  My work provokes in me all of the feelings, love, empathy, repulsion, humor, and acceptance. 

AOG: Is there a significance between the drawings with a singular subject and the drawings with multiple figures?

AM: I think they are all ultimately alone.  For me, the drawings with multiple figures often feel more lonely. I enjoy seeing how they will behave together.  It’s really just who comes out to play. 

Aris Moore, Lost and found, 2022. Pencil, colored pencil, marker and pen on paper. 8.5 x 10.5 in.

AOG: How has your work evolved and changed as you grew as an artist?

AM: I think it took me a while to move past art school and the idea of making “art”. I spent some years trying to figure out what kind of “art”  I would make.  All that while I was filling sketchbooks with figurative drawings that I had been drawing since I was a kid. It was a relief from making my “real work”  which was a painful struggle to be serious and relevant.  In grad school I escaped.  My characters started to come out of my sketchbooks and onto large paper,  it was such a relief.  I think the climate in the art world changed and I think my life was too busy as a mother of twins and a full time teacher  to do any sort of pretending.  My work became a place to be real, to connect, to understand.

AOG: Can you explain the significance of scale in your work? 

AM: Since Grad school I have embraced my love for drawing in sketchbooks. Before, I felt like they had to be preliminary to larger drawings that would come later. Back to that feeling that making art should be a painful struggle.  I realized that when my characters came out of my sketchbooks and walked onto large paper they got stage fright (one of my mentors told me this and I’ve never forgotten it). So, for now, they are on  small paper and that is a place that they can truly be themselves.  

AOG: Your drawings represent the creativity and spontaneity of making art. How does your work as an art teacher contribute to your artistic practice and vice versa?

Aris Moore, Nurture and Control, 2022. Pencil, colored pencil, marker and pen on paper. 8.5 x 10.5 in

AM: First, I will say that teaching helped me grow as an artist as much if not more than my time in art school.  Not only in terms of skill, but human understanding.  I spent my days in a very real space with middle schoolers, a painful, awkward, raw  and sometimes silly space. A difficult, yet exciting time when their internal world and external world start to clash, when their identity is simultaneously hidden and revealed, when they are at once child and adult. This space is at once, repulsive and beautiful, strong and vulnerable and familiar and strange.This space is where I live and draw.

AOG: And our favorite question - what advice do you have for artists just starting out?

AM: Play. Don’t worry about being relevant. You are relevant.  Play more than you work, it’s harder than it sounds but when you get to that place you will find what is really yours. Making art doesn’t have to be a painful struggle to fit in with what is happening. It can be a  painful struggle, not to fit in, but to get back to yourself.   The way back I am fairly certain, is to play.