The theme of this exhibition, Reclamation, refers to the act of returning something to a former state. Synonymous with improvement, recovery, recycling, repossession, and redemption. This idea is only offered as a starting place.

Curator's Statement

Artists see through everyday and discarded things accessing dormant stories within. The inventive artists in Reclamation are joined by a keen ability to refocus our world and make us aware of new possibilities. Like the creators of the Breathing Lights project, these diverse artists shine a light on what is usually passed by.

In some cases the subject is material - the stuff we know very well but rarely mine for poetic or narrative potential. Sewn shirts in paintings by Samuel Brandon, re-arranged book type in Fern Apfel’s collages, or the over-ripe detritus in playful and gutsy sculptures by Kim Faler and Grace Sachi Troxell.

Other times it is an attention to people around us - either in the historical record or neighbors around the corner, like those found within illuminating collages by Daesha Devon Harris and clear-eyed photographs by Dina Kantor.

Responding and reacting to found influences, several of these artists re-mix existing artwork and design. This is on display in abundant prints by Nathan Meltz including a new work made directly on the gallery wall, and the seemingly everyday wallpaper of Naomi Lewis. Adaptive re-use is also at play in an overflowing mixed media laboratory by Susan Meyer and the performative conscious-raising weaving of Barbara Todd.

Steven Niccols and Claire Sherwood offer more abstracted views of our surroundings with carefully handled muted colors and suggestive forms. Through texturally precise paintings and sewn sculptures, their works quietly hold their ground in plain site, and offer more private moments of re-discovery.

Time itself is reclaimed and made visible in an ominous filmstrip drawing by Nicholas Warndorf and a glorious contraption by Jesse Potts. Their works are catalysts for making elusive and potentially overwhelming ideas of geological time and memory present and real.

-Ian Berry, Dayton Director of The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College