Pressing Matter

2/9/25 - 2/15/25
Corinne Nichols, Arielle Shultz, & Anthony Venturi

The following show statement- featured on the partition wall when entering the space- was written collaborativly by the three artists.

Pressing Matter. Pressing; meaning urgent or necessary while also being to cram or to crush. Matter; commonly used to describe substance or importance. When placed together these words reflect the significance of haptic research, material manipulation, and the scientific method.

From cellular structures to mineral composites to layers of dirt built over time, the works reference accumulation. Meditations on the fact that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. Contemplating origin, the artists create conditions to incite transformation in the atomic furnaces of their studios while bearing witness to and collaborating with chance and entropy.

With no end in sight and no clear beginning, all three artists attempt to bridge the gap between the unseen world around us and the human experience, collecting evidence and leaving footprints as they go.

Pressing Matter was shown in Gallery 5 of The College of Fine Arts, 855 Commonwealth Ave, Boston. Photos: Wenbin Huang.

Wall text displayed next to Ovals (left painting):

Drawings: “The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric circles; that around every circle another can be drawn; from a ring imperceptibly small, outward to immense and innumerable expansions; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

Each new ring is informed by and would not be possible without all previous ones. The same logic follows in Ovals. The initial layer of marks sets the laws of the universe in which the painting exists in. The following layers are simply a filling of empty spaces left behind by its predecessor. Layers are like circles, and the continuous filling of gaps synthesizes a picture.

Though the final image may appear planned or predictable from the initial parameters, it is shaped by variation and chance. Gaps left in proceeding layers persist even as the artist continues to attempt to fill them, resulting in a persisting dialogue between intention, imperfection and unpredictability, where each layer reveals new opportunities for flaw, forgiveness, and continuation of the circle.

Diagrams used for labeling individual artworks.