Crossing Borders Artists:
Hans Overvliet, Giel Louws, Jorieke Rottier (The Netherlands)
Arezoo Bharthania, Ben Jackel, Valerie Wilcox (Los Angeles)
Woven Together Artists:
Jon Kraja, Bojken Lako, Silvi Naçi, Orion Shima, Martin Stommel, Ergys Zhabjaku, Alexis Zoto.
Curated by Curtis Stage.
Durden and Ray invite you to experience two exhibitions in one space. One half of the gallery will be dedicated to Crossing Borders, a collaboration with Ruimte Caesuur in The Netherlands. The other half of the gallery will feature Woven Together, a collaboration with Gallery 70 in Tirana, Albania.
As part of the Durden and Ray exchange program, Crossing Borders was conceived as a collaborative project between six artists; three from the collective Ruimte Caesuur in the Netherlands and three from Durden and Ray in Los Angeles. Each artist from the Netherlands chose a Durden and Ray artist to collaborate with directly, communicating back and forth over time. Each team of two artists came up with a unique concept for their collaboration, and used diverse mediums including; sculpture, painting, photography and installation. Artist pairings are Hans Overvliet and Ben Jackel, Jorieke Rottier and Arezoo Bharthania as well as Giel Louws and Valerie Wilcox. The central concept being a melding of ideas and objectives over time and place, intermingling their respective experiences. This causes a blurring of boundaries which leads us to question: Is it possible to bring an authentic experience of one place with you to another place, effectively crossing borders?
Woven Together presents a tapestry of artistic voices, cultures, and histories, intersecting at the crossroads of creativity and identity born out of a collaboration between Gallery 70 in Tirana, Albania and Durden and Ray. “Borders” serves as both a theme and a metaphor within this exhibition. It signifies the boundaries that can be traversed, blurred, or dismantled through the act of creation.
The interplay of “materials, histories, and symbolism” unfolds in the artworks, representing not only the physical elements used by the artists but also the layers of meaning woven into their expressions.
