Just a Moment
The phrase just a moment asks us to wait, tells us that something (else) will happen if we do. It also suggests a mere moment, a tiny bite of time in a vast expanse. The expanse itself is impossible to pin down: linear? cyclical? dynamic? rhythmic? random? logical? infinite? finite? All apply. But can a moment be mere? Yoon Cho, Priscilla P. Stadler, and Liz Sweibel say not at all, for it is in the subtle shifts from moment to moment that we and our world are exposed.
The inquiry driving the work of Cho, Stadler, and Sweibel is the quality of and tension between change and permanence, space and form, motion and stillness, solitude and connectedness. The impermanence or illusion of identity, the fragility and transcience of relationships, and the question of how form becomes and disperses are currents that run through and charge these artists' work.
Yoon Cho’s blurring photographs and videos make the shifting, formless quality of personal identity visual. We are as we are, then something changes - perhaps we relocate, perhaps we marry, perhaps we have a camera aimed at us. Our identity comes out of focus. In time, we take new form, relocate our edges. Identity is dynamic in Yoon's work, the subject of a narrative that unfolds in response to each shift in the environment. The camera is a tool for freezing it, preserving it - even in the fluid state of creating a new persona.
Priscilla Stadler’s drawings and sculpture explore shifting states of experience, connectedness, and place in an effort to locate larger systems of truth and belief that help us choose one person or path over another. The nature of consciousness, the presence of absence, and the dynamics of relationship, connection, and change are questions that fuel Stadler's exploration. In the "Not Heads-Just Connections" drawing series, the charged yet empty areas resonate with the blur in Cho's, but instead offer voids. The vibrant connections among voids parallel those among Cho's subjects. Where Stadler's void-subjects are characterized by their absence, Cho selects family and friends across generations, ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations, mirroring her own experience adapting to new social and physical environments.
Liz Sweibel’s sculpture and video quietly call attention to small, humble gestures and materials in her conviction that our tiny, momentary experiences are portals into our own humanity - and are actually all that we really have. If we pay close, sustained attention to each moment as we encounter it, we tap the sensitivity, empathy, and determination we need to care for each other and the world. The persistent quality of absence in her work - corresponding to Cho's blurs and Stadler's voids - evokes losses and missed opportunities. The dynamic charge of her silences and spaces speaks to hope, however - to an active waiting for what's next, also implicit in Cho's and Stadler's work.
Just a Moment will include video, sculpture, photographs, and drawings that, together, will offer a resonant, relevant experience of the fleeting qualities of identity, relationship, time, and life itself. The artists' intended approach is to integrate the sizeable space of the gallery as content. By punctuating the works with active space, the gallery will parallel the work, offering visitors moments for identification, reflection, and the experience of being present - even for just a moment.
