I make sculpted landscape paintings that project out from the wall, like open dioramas. The subjects are derived from landscape archetypes of beauty, such as mountains, forests, deserts, sunsets, rivers and bodies of water. I recognize the common and collective love for these subjects, as spaces for reflecting, contemplation, and surrendering to something larger and more timeless than us. I also see conflicts, and our ecological footprint in these landscapes, whether perceived or actual. The conflict can be specific, or unspecific, and imply environmental, political, cultural or historical issues. Sometimes it is a blatant problem like a melting glacier, other times it is more of a subtle inference that affects my perception of the space. The process of creating my pictures is much about the mitigation of these conflicted subjects, real or contrived, while trying to reimagine beauty.

—Barry Hazard

The pantomime horse character features predominantly in my work. This sentient horse costume is a surreal lens through which I explore themes of anxiety, power, dysfunction and absurdity. As cartoonish as the horse is, it seems to always be navigating serious and perplexing psychological situations. With a nod to the repetitive elasticity of animation, as well as the awkward practical effects of campy horror movies, the horse’s form is often stretched, compacted, cloned, and even transformed into other recognizable objects and symbols. The horse looks preposterous, wide eyed and clumsily adorned with polka dots, yet there are uncanny undertones in the work. Often in these scenes, laughter and concern seem equally appropriate.

—Rachel Jackson

Sarah Alice Moran makes magic paintings. The bleeding and soaking action of her pigments on unprimed canvas conjures a primal feminine force. In Moran’s universe, there is darkness in rainbows, comfort in the presence of ghosts, and an entire bestiary of supernatural familiars. The compositions contain contradictions: they often overlay flat iconography atop scenes with depth and realism, combine humor with the macabre, and create fully realized characters with minimal mark-making. Moran aims to redefine power and strength by highlighting moments of intuition, communication and contemplation. The work is witchy in the ancient, alchemical, abject-feminine sense, yet it is grounded in contemporaneity, with influences ranging from Balthus to Scooby-Doo.

My puzzle collages are made of vintage jigsaw puzzles that I catalogue by die-cut- a passion project that has run concurrently to my painting practice for the last 10 years. I group puzzles that use the same die-cut (which means they have identically-shaped pieces) but different images, and swap the pieces to create unexpected compositions. For example, with Gumball Impressionism, I have one puzzle of a gumball machine, and another puzzle of the Renoir painting 'Bouquet of Chrysanthemums'. I complete each puzzle separately, then I lay one on top of the other, matching up the identically shaped pieces. Then, I peel away sections of the top puzzle until I get an image I’m satisfied with, comprised of sections from both the gumball machine puzzle on top and the Renoir painting puzzle below. I call this 'collage' the A-Side. Then, I take all the leftover pieces from both layers and assemble them into a second completed puzzle. I call this the B-Side. I then continue to swap passages of each image back and forth until I'm satisfied with both 'collages'. Dramatically different types of images, united only by identically-shaped puzzle pieces, end up weaving together to create surprisingly dynamic and illusionistic passages. Conceptually, this seems to point to an underlying unifying current of energy through disparate images and objects, and tapping into the discovery of that current is a significant part of what compels me to continue making the collages. 

As a teenager, I felt that the most authentic way to paint a human might be to start with the bones, then layer the veins and musculature over them, and finally paint the skin on top. This preoccupation with layering, and it’s ability to conceal, reveal, and flesh out qualities that might not be immediately apparent on the surface, takes form in both my paintings and my puzzle collages. The images come together and fall apart, extending the contemplative viewing experience and reveling in the slippage between the mundane and the strange.

—Rachel Schmidhofer