Body Language

Body Language
April 5 – September 7, 2014

Darcie Abbatiello
Melanie Baker
Leona Christie
Brian Cirmo
Sean Hovendick
Sergei Isupov
Paul Miyamoto
Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison
Amy Podmore
Lin Price

Without saying a word, we speak to one another through gesture, gaze and composure. Interpreting the nuances of this language requires intuition and a certain degree of empathy for those around us. Perhaps more than any other subject matter in art, the body invites associations with our own sense of self, as well as our notions of other. In this exhibition, the human form becomes a source of allegory, personal narrative, cultural sensibility and transformation.

In contrast to the tradition of aiming for a faithful likeness, the artists assembled here present subjects that are not at once who they seem.  Features are intentionally distorted or hybridized; environments and events are laced with incongruities and inversions. We are prompted to consider – as these figures do –how our individual story, with its reflections on the past and aspirations for the future, fits within a collective human identity.