Sharp Hands Gallery Summer 2021

CURATORS’ NOTES

Last weekend, we had the long-awaited moment of actually meeting up in person for the first time in about a year and a half. It was in Wenatchee, Washington, where Collapse Gallery, operated by the inimitable Chad Yenney, is featuring a fantastic show of collage, as curated by Laura Weiler and Kellette Elliott of the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective.

It was about this time last year that we decided to start up this virtual space to feature new work by some of our favorite collage artists from around the world. One of the reasons we started it was to keep an interactive sense of support and community going, knowing it would probably be a while before people could mingle in galleries together again. So getting together in Wenatchee with about thirty other artists was an especially reenergizing experience. Through all the ups and downs of the past sixteen months, our hope is growing. Not only for the health and sanity of the world, but for collage, and how it shows the world around us in a way that always surprises and thrills us.

We’re so excited to bring you our fourth show—maybe our favorite one yet. Jorge Chamorro was one of the first we asked to contribute and he surprised us with a haunting set of work from a large new series he’s working on. Lee McKenna haunts us further, with colorful textures floating over monochrome backdrops. Ben DiNino disorients and disrupts our concept of negative space. Nereida Dusten presents women in her work who are cut from their past stories of supposed comfort and placed in a new sense of conflict. Kellette Elliott transforms the pain from a recent surgery into beautiful images of struggle and release. Soraia Aguirre plays with shape, balance, and nature that somehow seems both unconscious and wide awake. All in all, these artists—from Spain, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, and the US—are constantly making exciting new work, and we’re proud to feature some of it here for you.

Thank you and enjoy,

Cheryl Chudyk & Kevin Sampsell, curators