All images via her website.

Extremely playful, Seripop’s focus on paper is an interesting one, especially in What Should Have Been and Would Not (first four images), which the papered pieces in the net seem at once both light and hold much visual weight.

All images via their website.

In collaged pieces, Leah’s photography is often non-specific and enlarged to highlight texture. Aesthetically, I love the diffused nature of her mark-making and photos, which speaks to the larger scope of her work. She writes:

The intention of my work is to visually record the subtleties in everyday life that we do not always notice or appreciate. For example, the idea of pausing and enjoying a moment that is right there in front of our eyes, such as a shadow on a wall, a piece of paper in the wind, or a reflection in a window. Through capturing details of things that may seem insignificant in our daily lives, the fragmented beauty of the subject is brought to the forefront and chaos is pushed back. Ultimately, the raw purity and fragility of the image is unravelled.

All images via her website/Tumblr.

The illustration and paintings of Sarah Williamson are simply wonderful, utilizing a few different techniques to bring forth her visual language. There is a major emphasis on the freedom of media (as she paints with wet-on-wet) and a love the figure and landscape. Inspired by what’s around her, the Brooklynite writes:

I used to work, but one day I picked up a pen and images came, I began to see all of the dreams the decay and the excess around me. Around all of us. I once read in a very famous book, “All things are full of labor, man cannot utter it…” But I don’t think of what I do now as labor. My work feels like a natural product of curiosity about our surroundings: people and things disintegrating, dreaming, living, not living. The world is full of color, I cannot utter.

All images via her website.

Checking in on Gina’s work, I found discovered her newest endeavor — the creation of flowers out of paper and placement in unexpected places. Small wildflowers placed in the cracks of buildings, and greenery installed on rocks. These small additions to the landscape really make the passerby more aware and conscious of the space and make it feel a bit more precious. I’m reminded of the Dispatchwork project but with an organic twist.

All images via Gina’s blog.

My present work stems from tensions and comforts that reflect feelings of anxiety, celebration, power and control and the boundaries between them. Culturally I investigate the emotional relationships that dwell in the intermediate space between the natural world and the domestic world by way of choice materials and images from American Subcultures. I explore relationships of color, composition and objects within these contexts.

All images via her website.

All images via his website.

Matt has an Etsy store where he is selling prints, paper dolls, and t-shirts. I am especially excited for the unique, hand-colored paper dolls and the You Are Forgiven color print:

All images via Etsy.

My work illustrates a fantastic landscape. It represents nature’s subtle way of dealing with the peculiar aspects in the relationship with mankind. A giant glow-in-the-dark heart, or a pile of precious gems tells us that we are loved, just as blood squirting from an oak tree trunk says, all is not well. I am inspired by my conversation with the landscape, I imagine long monologues when pine forests make me laugh and mountains test my patience.

All images via his website.

If you stop what you are doing and look as far away as you can, even if it is just in the other room, or if you are lucky enough to be outside, look as far away as you can. There are so many things/stuff/objects in your way of seeing far into the distance. Those distractions, objects, patterns and the smallest opening that lets you see even further are what my paintings are about. They are about the things in the way of seeing as far as you can. Sometimes these objects in my paintings are from memories, memories of the color of a room or shape of a hill. The combination of the struggle to see in the distance and flashes of memories make up the stories within my paintings. Out of these thoughts comes work that looks almost abstract, but in my eyes the combination of shapes and colors have stories.

All images via her website. Ky also has a blog detailing her art collection, which I really enjoyed viewing as well.

Since I will miss the reception tomorrow, I took the liberty of viewing Search Engine: Lou Joseph 1998–2012 at the North Ave. Market on my own. I was blown away by amount of work on the walls, also enjoyed navigating through the space with the Search Engine Field Guide (available as a pamphlet upon entering the gallery).

A retrospective of work over the past 14 years, the exhibition (put on by the Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore) explores the varied work that Lou has produced. Personal history reveals that he has lived many places (Tuscon, Venice, and Philadelphia to name a few) before coming to Baltimore in 2008. The exhibition highlights this fact by layering every available piece made by Lou since 1998.

What was most successful about this exhibition was its sheer volume. Every piece hung on the wall (or on the floor) was apart of Lou’s history, good or bad. Individually, some pieces work better than others, but seeing them all together creates interesting juxtapositions that help to elevate what might be weaker.

In the Search Engine Field Guide, it highlights the themes present in Lou’s work:

Battles and conflicts predominate. Some pieces are cartoonish and bizarre visually — as fights waged between reproductive organs or tentacled breasts– while other allude to situations that are equally bizarre but increasingly common sights culled from the news, like drones, cars on fire and tent cities. There is a steady preoccupation with repitition, not just of line and pattern, but as a way of understanding futility and failure.

The reception for this show will be tomorrow, Friday the 20th, from 6PM-9M at the North Ave. Market. It is located at 16 W. North Avenue in the Station North Arts District. If you are artistically inclined, you wil also walk around the show imagining what all of your work would look like displayed in this way. I know I did.

For more information on Lou Joseph, check out his website. Also take a look at his Tumblr, too.