Jaime Coffey Bateman – California Series
California Series at TAG Gallery is Jaime Coffey Bateman’s celebration of unique lighting in nature and the connection and adventure of a place. She travels throughout the state taking photographs and when back in her studio starts a process of editing and making notes for her paintings. Working in Egg tempera, a mixture of egg yolk, dry pigment and water, multiple layers are painted for each color and nuances between tone, transparency and vibrancy are created.
Stepping into California Series is an experience of watching light progress throughout the day. By concentrating on light as its own entity, Bateman explores how it manipulates itself around objects and is distinguished through mood. Light seems to create a dialogue between forms by defining them and their negative spaces. Embracing the idea that the edge of uncertainty is where growth happens, Jaime has ventured into a subtle narrative between the landscape and wildlife. There exists a slight edge of abstraction mixed with representation. A sense of movement, as if in a passing car, can be felt, until the viewer stops at an individual painting and experiences the quiet of the landscape, losing themselves in intimate details and stillness.
Suki Kuss – Balancing Act
Suki Kuss’ newest exhibition at TAG Gallery entitled Balancing Act, is a study of traditional craft making through a feminist lens. Kuss aims to reclaim the sovereignty of “a woman’s work”, from a patriarchal grasp while simultaneously uplifting the women that perform these tasks and the objects they create.
Kuss has an interest in materials considered traditionally female (vintage fabrics, papers, laces, etc.) and has expanded her palette to now include Asian inspired collections of ephemera. Having been given a book about Japanese kimonos by her mother, she was inspired to delve into the traditionally female task of kimono making, using her own unique collage technique.
These femmage (feminine collage) pieces, though perhaps seen as craft or decorative art, have a power of their own. Here Kuss is embracing the decorative as a positive quality, fighting against what she feels is an artistic condescension that had long dismissed decorative as a trivial sign of inferior art or craft.
This past year, Kuss’ beloved husband fell ill and passed away three weeks after the completing of an early “Kimono” piece. Harnessing her grief, Kuss walked a line between continuing her practice and running all aspects of their business on her own. This exhibition is a labor of love that came together in a spiral of emotion and creativity with the finished work speaks of women’s resilience and need to create.
Rebecca Marie – In Between
Artist Rebecca Marie’s debut exhibition at TAG Gallery is a carefully crafted study of the journey of metamorphism, the image, the artist, and the viewer through the female lens and gaze. The exhibition entitled In Between, finds Marie juxtaposing canvas, board, textured papers, and paint to construct meticulous pieces depicting the feelings, thought processes, mind and essence of the woman.
The works covers a wide emotional spectrum, depicting the quiet and simple to more active and complex compositions, seeing Marie mirroring the non-monolithic and intersectional nature of womanhood. These works depict a moment in a time ranging from active to still. Each painting is intended to hold its own sense of agency and empowerment without compartmentalization or objectification.
In Between fuses representational and abstract elements to take what is familiar, and shine a light on its inner complexity and composition. In the weaving of the abstract and the representational Marie aims to fully capture the multifaceted complexity and experiences of the woman and influence the viewers perception, and her own as well.
Lyle Rushing – Human. Male. Black.
Lyle Rushing’s debut exhibition at TAG Gallery is a study of the intersectional nature of the human experience, topical events and living while black. The exhibition entitled “Human. Male. Black.” celebrates the universality of the human experience while also investigating the ways in which black men are regarded while navigating through everyday life and emotions. Rushing aims to celebrate and uplift the black experience, while also giving visibility to the emotions often overlooked and not associated with masculinity at large and black male masculinity in particular. The exhibition is ‘real’ black without even trying.
