After the Fall Comes Love; or The Shadow Society
Curated by Haley Hughes
Dove Hays . Blanka Amezkua . Simon Lee . Angela Conant w/ text by Kendra Sullivan . J.Stoner Blackwell . Angel Favorite . Richie Adomako . Eugenia Chun . Monica Palma . William Powhida . Julia Samuels . Zeljko McMullen . Kyp Malone . Tatiana Kronberg . Lilah Friedland . Holly Overton . Dan Wooldridge . dominika ksel . Eddy Segal . Tianna Kennedy . Muir Hughes . Hope Gangloff . Chris Fox . Alex Egan . Garrett Devoe . Erin O’Donnell . Jesse Karch . Julia Lee . Haley Hughes.
November 19 – December 10, 2022
Opening reception: Saturday, November 19, 5–8 pm
Open Hours / Open House with the artists: Sunday, November 20, 2-5
On view during Open Hours, Bushel programs, by chance, and by appointment
(for appointments, email info@bushelcollective.org)
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Curator’s statement:
‘What is to come? What tools do we have as people, as artists? What is a thumb stuck in a cog worth? or pleasantries flung towards a dumpster fire? What is health? What is a home? What is community? What responsibility do we have to the future, what kind of future? What roles do we play, inadvertently or not, to validate/invalidate a society of consumer individualism that is running toward a cliff, and what can we do to truly subvert the appropriation of any attempt we make to buck this system, while living in a more and more self-facing western world?
There is a magic that lives in creating a place for people to feel held, grow, lighten, laugh, darken and mourn collectively. A magic that can create new forms of expression, yet to be definable, save for the thumping of hearts and the contact made between exuberant eyes. How do we use our work to heal, to hold, to inform, to demand, to stop the destruction of the sacred? How can we take a holistic approach to the exchange between disparate forms of art and experience; philosophically and aesthetically to at the very least create a 4-dimensional accounting of our time, that can work together to irrevocably set in stone that the power of art and care resides in LOVE and NOT capital!!!!?
After The Fall Comes Love; or The Shadow Society is set against the backdrop of a deceptively static state: a world run by seemingly elected, yet unaccountable and stateless hegemonic death cult members, as far as open eyes and ears can conclude. This multidisciplinary group exhibition brings together artists from different oeuvres to create a tactile, didactically truthful space of love and reflection. The works, collectively and in community, conspire to spin a chrysalis of safe harbor: for our stories, emotions, ephemeral mind fucks, transitory wavelengths, siren-scratching eye flares; for weary hearts and tired hands to be bolstered by…’
—HH
Haley Hughes (b. Paradise , California, 1984, “Self-taught”). Hughes’ paintings act as a psycho-historical archive as well as a call to action. The center of her philosophy and the aesthetic of her work is to address the crisis we face with immediacy, by assessing the state of our shared humanity by subjecting racial /social/economic and environmental injustice to humanist investigation. Producing an alternative story to the dominant historiographies of empire by holding politicians and corporations accountable, they tell the stories of the hard work of activists and leaders and everyday people rising up against all forms of oppression; in vast intertwining narrative landscapes and on a smaller scale in portraiture or tragic/ comical vignettes; resulting in a visual archive that chronicles the events of our time. Evolving through journalistic investigation into the intersectionality of current events and their resonating psychological, philosophical and sociological implications, to create contemporary allegories that show us the past, present and potential futures at once with the intention of creating space for collective contemplation, resistance, reconciliation and transformation. Hughes’ work has been reviewed in ArtForum and most recently mounted her solo exhibition “This is Your Country” at Spring/Break Art Show. She has exhibited at PS122, S/B/A L.A., Scope Art Show Miami Beach/ Assembly Room, New York, NY/ Bushel Collective, Delhi, NY/ Le Petit Versailles, New York, NY/ Every Woman Biennial, La MaMa Gallery, New York, NY/ Rhode Island Arts League, Providence, RI/ MOMA PS1 BookFair,Queens, NY/ Haverford College, Haverford, PA/ Watermill Center, Watermill, NY/ Columbia College, Columbia, MO/ Field Projects, NY, NY/ Elizabeth Art Foundation Project Space, New York, NY/ Gowanus Studio Space and the Sunview Luncheonette. published in The Nation Magazine, W Mag, title mag, Wallpaper and Huffington Post. Special Commissions, acquisitions and residencies include the Debt Collective, Public Bank, The Allen Art Museum, Watermills Center. I-Park and OverPass Projects Print Residency.
image (top): Haley Hughes. Black Balloon. 2022. Oil on canvas. 24 x 36 in. Haley Hughes
image (bottom): Holly Overton. Participant. 2020. Oil on canvas. 18 x 24 in.