Friday Nov 24, 2023 Sunday Jan 28, 2024
November 24, 2023 - January 28, 2024
3S Artspace - Gallery 319 Vaughan St Portsmouth NH
Free and open to the public
DON'T PANIC! NOVEMBER 24, 2023 - JANUARY 28, 2024 Opening Reception / Meet the Artists: Friday, December 1 / 5-8pm Free and open to the public Opening Reception coincides with Art Round Town.* Additional Art Round Town nights: Friday, January 5. 5-8pm.
Exhibit Statement: What if we measured our lives in love, relationships, and connectedness? Don’t Panic! explores these questions along with play, mindfulness, and not taking ourselves too seriously. This multi-media group exhibition curated by New England artist and educator Ashley Normal, pairs the work of late artist and community builder Cait Giunta, alongside regional artists she supported and fostered. Cait’s work reminds us ‘One day we are all going to be eaten up by the sun.’ Until that day comes how will you live your life? Featuring works by: artists will be announced soon
Ashley Normal (curator) bio: Ashley Normal is an artist, educator, and community builder. As an artist she works under the pseudonym Ashley Normal. Making observations in the everyday, she illuminates the bizarre and absurd in the familiar. Through drawing, painting, mixed-media, altered materials, and performance she creates works where nothing is as it seems, and which communicate issues around: womanhood, gender, mental illness, family, and social taboos. She connects with the Japanese ceramic method and philosophy Kintsugi, which treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object. Rather than something to disguise, the imperfections of an object adds to its allure, making it more beautiful for having been broken. She is drawn to the relationship of attraction and repulsion, dark humor, and the surreal.
Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME; 3S Artspace Gallery, Portsmouth, NH; Lamont Gallery, Exeter, NH; Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA; Bardo Gallery, Cambridge, MA; and the MAKE8ELIEVE Magazine, Chicago, IL & Geneva, Switzerland. She was a finalist for the Walter Feldman Fellowship in 2015, as well as awarded Best in Show at the Rochester Biennial, Rochester Museum of Fine Arts, Rochester, NH, 2015. Her work is represented by Chases Garage Gallery, York, ME and Nahcotta Gallery, Portsmouth, NH. She currently resides in Southern New Hampshire with her partner and son.