Statement by Curator, Kyle Butler:

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A Color I Can Not See features the work of the current Teaching Artists at Starlight Studio and Art Gallery. Along with aiding the creative work of participants at the studio, each Teaching Artists pursue their own individual creative practice. The work on display represents recent stopping points, preoccupations, and processes of each artist; including: Lily Booth’s recent mold-and-cast works, Kyle Butler’s thin abstractions of buildings engulfed in flame, Sussan Giallombardo’s reductive color arrays, Maggie Parks’ dream-like creature renderings and recent ceramic works, and Olivia Long’s recent experiments with paint and embedded text that utilize the artist’s own writing (from which the title of the show comes). Included below is more on each artist’s work, in their own words.

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The opening of this exhibit will take place on Friday, May 5th with a reception from 6-8 p.m. at Starlight Studio & Art Gallery. The work will be on display through June 30th.

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Lily Booth
I’ve been obsessed with mold making for the past few years and the attempt to get away from the singular preciousness of an object. My intent was to free myself from the tightness and time I pour into my work, but really this has only enabled me to clamp down more.

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Kyle Butler
I’ve recently revisited a body of work that involves sparsely painted images of burning buildings.   The work leans into its simple contrasts: between organic plume forms and the rigid architecture, between the imperfectly drawn and the tightly masked, and between the grim subject matter and the cheery color palette.

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Sussan Giallombardo
My current work focuses on the relationship between colors and exploring their nuances. The process continues to be integral to my art practice.  I create detailed color studies using gouache. Working in oils gives me time to create a specific color. By painting in layers, the paint develops a presence of its own.

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Olivia Long
My art-making practice is an ongoing conversation with memory, love, grief, language, and presence. It is a microcosm of what it feels like to create at all, very often an expression of awe. I return to touchstones of fragmented text and personal writings. Having worked primarily with print media in the past, this year has been an invitation towards paint, as I began to create multiples in this medium. One image informs the next. Imagery and meaning come and goes, and through it, I return to the page.

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Maggie Parks
My work explores a world between a dream state and memory. I use animals and landscapes to metaphorically examine ideas of the sacred, ephemeral, ceremony, and identity.

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