AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE

CURATED BY MADELEINE BIALKE

November 8 - November 24, 2019

Anna Berlin, Madeline Bialke, Melissa Brown, Fiona Buchanan, Jennifer Coates, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, Cassandra Mayela Federy, Marissa Graziano, Jen Hitchings, Breehan James, Marta Lee, Leeanne Maxey, Naomi Nakazato, Carmen Neely, Adrianne Rubenstein, Elena Sisto, And Aliza Sternstein.

More than half of the buildings constructed in America have been erected in the last seventy years or so, just as most of the trees found in suburbs and forests across the country are young (for trees), born after the peak of logging, or too young to make the cut. American Earthquake is a poetic rumination on the effects of the wild, unregulated growth and subsequent ecological devastation of this country.

These works engage with the abstracted national dream and its drive to empty success. Human elements are woven in to evoke quotidian detritus existing in tandem with a disappearing landscape. Nature, here, is performative and compromised-simplified. This is a geography of nowhere, a place where every Dunkin Donuts is the same, and many persons adrift.
And yet, despite this dark genealogy urban progress leaves cracks in its wake. Liminal spaces exist in the smooth, cold asphalt where determined grass can sprout. There are plants who remember and find the places we forget; our tree-line is drawn by survivors. Their identity is one of perseverance, patience, and slow growth. People, too, find belonging in these spaces.
This exhibition of paintings combines an ethos of malaise with a grasp for national purpose and survival, featuring works by Anna Berlin, Madeleine Bialke, Melissa Brown, Fiona Buchanan, Jennifer Coates, T. J. Dedeaux-Norris, Cassandra Mayela Federy, Marissa Graziano, Jen Hitchings, Breehan James, Marta Lee, Leeanne Maxey, Naomi Nakazato, Carmen Neely, Adrianne Rubenstein, Elena Sisto, and Aliza Sternstein. The show is organized through Olympia, a curating platform utilizing spaces to promote gender-marginalized artists, dedicated to eliminating gender binaries and building an intricate community and inclusive channels for intellectual growth.