Producing Humans
Artists: Aurora Andrews . Alexandra Egan . Leah Frankel . Jaclyn Guido . Zena Gurbo . Kathy Lo . Alyssa Matthews . Joetta Maue . Melissa Murray . Kate Parvenski . Carrie Mae Smith . Yasmin Reshamwala . Michelle Rosenberg . Jessamee Sanders . Leonie Weber . Zine contributors: Mirene Arsanios . Iris Cushing . Alexandra Egan . Corrine Fitzpatrick . Emily Johnston . Tricia Vessey . Rachael Guynn Wilson . L.E. Wood
Curated by Alexandra Egan, Alyssa Matthews, and Yasmin Reshamwala
Zine edited by Iris Cushing and designed by Alexandra Egan
August 20 – September 24, 2023
Opening reception: Sunday, August 20, 3-5pm
Film screening: Friday, September 15, 7pm. The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021) Free.
On view during Open Hours, Bushel programs, by chance, and by appointment
(for appointments, email info@bushelcollective.org)
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In the winter of 2021, a collective of new parents local to Delaware County formed to create a community around the recent transition to parenthood. As new parents, they have sought to share resources and experiences and to cultivate support and friendship. Many questions arise almost immediately when starting a family. How are gender roles complicated? How is time and energy newly quantified, dissolved, reabsorbed? What value is placed on the repetitive tasks required to reproduce daily life for family and community? Inspired by these questions, three group members—Alexandra Egan, Alyssa Matthews, and Yasmin Reshamwala—conceived of a group exhibition of works that examine or reflect systems of reproductive labor, exploring such themes as time as capital, the kaleidoscopic role of a caregiver, the bodily and spiritual labor of child-rearing, and the power dynamics at work within the cyclical maintenance of family and home. This exhibition, which includes work selected from an open call as well as an accompanying zine edited by Iris Cushing, is the result of their efforts. Bushel is thrilled to be hosting this guest-curated exhibition.
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ARTISTS
Aurora Andrews is a painter who grew up in Arizona and lives in New York. Her work has been exhibited at various galleries in Brooklyn including 321 Gallery, Bannerette, and Fastnet, Dread Lounge in Los Angeles, and Collar Works and Hudson House in New York state. She received an MFA in Painting from Bard College.
Alexandra Egan is a writer and artist living in Meredith, NY and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Recent poems have appeared in Posit Journal, Bodega Mag and elsewhere. Her work documents the viscera of our shared human experience. She can be found at alexandra egan.com
Leah Frankel is a visual artist whose work deals with physical truths of human existence and their relationship to its remarkable environment. Coming from a background in Sculpture and Installation Art, Frankel began weaving during early pandemic restrictions and developed a new body of work exploring warps, wefts, and metaphorical intersections. She has long incorporated found objects, string, tension, and gravity into her work and the practice of weaving allowed these elements to be contained in a frame. Frankel’s recent weavings deal with various content ranging from abstractions generated by scanning objects on a scanning bed to the evolving relationship between a parent and Child. Frankel completed her MFA at The Ohio State University in 2014 and is currently Professor of Practice of Sculpture at Hartwick College. Frankel lives in Franklin, NY with her husband and two sons.
Jaclyn Guido is an artist living and working in New York City and in the Catskills. She began working in ceramic to satisfy a desire to express her vision in three dimensions. She is captivated by the alchemy possible with clay; where soft flowing organic forms transform into durable long-lasting objects. Natural materials are important to her work, as they defy the control of the sculptor and lend their own unique direction. Her sculptural forms and compositions explore concepts of femininity, strength, and the forces that can act on an shape those same ideas.
Zena Gurbo has been living, working, making and exhibiting art in the Upper Catskills and NYC. Gurbo’s career working with “outsider” artists with developmental disabilities has heavily informed her art making process, “I’m always looking to free myself from the thought process that can corrupt the pure joy of art making, even while grappling with depression, grief and all the rest that life brings – the act of creation always lifts me just enough not to feel overwhelmed by all feelings.
Kathy Lo is a fashion and portraiture photographer. She was born in Taiwan and raised in Vancouver, Canada. After attending Simon Fraser University she moved to NYC in 2006 to pursue a career in photography. Her love of photography started at an early age when she was given a camera and would take photographs while traveling with her family. Her photographs capture the underlying nature of people in playful moments and this spontaneous snapshot quality resonates with her clients.
Alyssa Matthews is an artist based in the Western Catskills, having recently moved from New York City. Her sculpture practice in NYC coalesced around found objects gleaned from her commute and jobs in the fine art industry. Matthews explores performative maintenance, dreams, the construct of feminine consciousness, and chiaroscuro with her practice.
Joetta Maue is a multi-faceted artist working across the disciplines of drawing, photography and textiles. Maue’s work has been exhibited with galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including, but not limited to: the Arts Complex Museum, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, MK Gallery & Institution in Britain and the Masur Museum of Art. Maue’s work has shown in cities including New York, L.A, San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington D.C., Boston, London, Edinburgh and Tokyo and institutions such as Harvard University, Arizona University, University of Rochester and Tufts University. Maue is a sought after lecturer and instructor working with numerous esteemed institutions including NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study, The Japan Society Museum in NYC, Fuller Craft Museum, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. She is currently a Lecturer at Northeastern University, Lesley University and UMASS as well as an invited instructor at a number of programs and institutions across the country
Melissa Murray has exhibited in the US and internationally, including Galerie SAS in Montreal, A.I.R. Gallery, Causey Contemporary, Lesley Heller Workspace, Nelson Macker Fine Art, Transmitter Gallery, Garis and Hahn and The Children’s Museum of the Arts, Hawk and Hive, Wassaic Project, Art Port Kingston in NY and Howe Gallery at Kean University in New Jersey, Heaven Gallery in Chicago, Every Woman Biennial, The Spring Break and Pulse Art Fairs in New York. Murray is amongst the artists included in the publication 50 Contemporary Women Artists. Notable press and reviews by Architectural Digest, Thalia Magazine, The Village voice, The Montreal Gazette, L Magazine, Wild Magazine, Blouin Artinfo, Studio Visit Magazine, Art Fag City, Hyperallergic, Time Out, Vellum Magazine Mother Maker Podcast, ArtKill and Juxtapoz Magazine. Murray’s work was recently included in a collaboration with the Orchestra of St Lukes in a virtual release of her paintings alongside the orchestral works of Eleanor Alberga, as well as a group exhibition with the London Art Fair. She is currently preparing for her solo show “Once met by Morning Dew” at Hawk and Hive Gallery in the Catskills. Murray has also recently presented at Volta NYC and has been featured in ArtMaze Mag under the curation of Hesse Flatow.
Carrie Mae Smith lives and works in upstate New York. Her work explores object-hood and power dynamics embedded in historic utilitarian forms. Influenced by her life experiences in the Northeastern United States, including working with antiques, migrant farming, and working as a private chef on Martha’s Vineyard, Smith’s works serve as symbols of class, labor, friendship, tradition, love, and utility. She earned an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Delaware in 2013. Smith has received numerous awards and grants including the Clowes Fellowship Full Scholarship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc. Artist Grant; and the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation, Artist Grant. She has exhibited her work internationally and nationally, with recent solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, CA at Lowell Ryan Projects; Locust Grove Estate in Poughkeepsie, NY; and The Berman Museum of Art in Collegeville, PA.
Kate Parvenski is an artist and multimedia producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice is rooted in deep listening and storytelling. Gently handling and highlighting the accumulations of her day-to-day life, she uses collage, sculpture, scanning, photography, and video to document her personal archive in varying states. In addition to her studio practice, Kate is currently the content director at Testudo, where she documents and showcases artists working across a variety of mediums. She has also been a co-producer for the Make/Time interview podcast with craft artisans, a video producer highlighting artist programs at Textile Arts Center, and project manager supporting creative teams at Parsons School of Design and StoryCorps. Kate holds a BA in Art from Vassar College and an MA in Media Studies from The New School.
Yasmin Reshamwala is an artist, musician, and educator based in Andes, NY. Her work spans from still life prop styling to fine art intermedia work as well as a vocalist and instrumentalist for an array of NYC based bands. She has played in the groups Wild Arrows, Lavalier, and the house band for the Jim Henson funded show American Weather. She has taught experimental music and visual arts courses at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY as well as School of the Alternative at the former Black Mountain College in Ashville, NC. She is currently teaching K-12 Music at a small rural public school in Upstate NY.
Michelle Rosenberg (b. Manchester, UK) is an artist and architect who works with a range of materials to make installations and sculptures that expose existing systems and re-code familiar objects. Her past projects have included embedding whistles into walls and creating secret languages out of litter. She currently makes delicate sculptures with used brooms that The New Yorker Magazine says “subverts half a dozen art-historical genres”. Exhibition venues include: the Royal College of Art (London), Kuandu Museum of Art (Taipei), Exit Art, Gerald Peters Gallery and Louis B James (New York), Western Exhibition (Chicago), and Small a Projects (Portland, Oregon). She has created outdoor public art installations at Socrates Sculpture Park, University Settlement and The Peekskill Project (New York), Johns Hopkins University and Artscape (Baltimore). She has been awarded residencies at Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Triangle Arts, among others. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Masters of Fine art from Hunter College in New York. She lives and works in New York and the Hudson Valley.
Jessamee Sanders grew up in Delaware County and attended the Rhode Island School of Design after finishing high-school in VT at the Putney School. Maintaining a 2D practice in drawing and a 3D practice sculpting, mostly in a private capacity, she considers herself a lifelong creative. Sanders currently lives in Oneonta with her husband and 2 year old daughter Jude.
Leonie Weber was born in Heidelberg, Germany. Her work spans several mediums: sculpture, installation, printmaking, and video. Her latest body of work is concerned with reproductive labor, motherhood, maintenance and care. Weber recently received an MFA from Hunter College, and also has a degree of Fine Art from Bauhaus University Weimar. Recent group shows include her thesis exhibition “It Begins With What’s Already There” at Hunter College, and “Ähnlich aber Anders” at Kunstverein Esslingen, Germany. Her solo show “Ein Muskel, der für Dich arbeitet” just opened at the artist run space Oberwelt in Stuttgart, Germany. Weber lives in New York City with her family.
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image:
Zena Gurbo, “This is some kind of Frida Kahlo painting” [detail], 2009
Acrylic on clayboard
Photo: Zena Gurbo