Sarah Shimon
Four Months Was Not Long Enough
Sarah Shimon created her artwork from homemade paper and paper pulp, as well as dyes and acrylic paint. The paper she used had emotional ties to her life, such as copies of obituaries and love letters. The layers of pulp are meant to portray these emotions. Each of the sculptures is titled with a six-word memoir that represents a significant part of Shimon’s personal life.
“The process itself—steps of shredding, blending and transforming paper—was a way of healing my pain and decluttering my environment filled with memories,” Shimon wrote of her work. “It symbolically represents letting go and unleashing the feelings trapped inside.”
Four Months Was Not Long Enough
Your Shirt Hides in my Drawer
Why? To Help Save the Animals
Took a Sip of Something Poison
Now They Lie Beneath the Ground
Katie McKim
Raw Perception
Katie McKim believes color affects mood and emotion—on both a personal and universal level. Her paintings—acrylic on paper—are meant to reveal a range of raw emotions through different color schemes and rough brush strokes.
The seven panels each represent different segments and experiences from McKim’s life. She chose to create seven works because the number is symbolic of completeness and perception in the Book of Revelations.
“In letting go of societal perception and focusing on spiritual perception,” wrote McKim, “I have begun to transform my beliefs, which is reflected in my artwork.
I Can Breathe Again
Call Back Later
Let it Be
What Am I Doing Here?
Attacked
Where Do I Begin?
Let Go One Day at at Time
Taylor Schuelke
I Am Us
There is a beauty in the ability to know oneself and a comfort in recognizing that we are the architechts of our own identities,” wrote Taylor Schuelke of her artwork. “The details are what make us distinctive.”
Schuelke’s photo montage represents her search for distinguishing characerstics in her encounters with others. The boxes that separate the photos serve as barriers. The viewer must look around them to see every detail.
Schuelke used color in her photographs only when necessary to highlight a characteristic. The yellow line on the wall represents her unchanging identity that runs through all her encounters with other people.
Kate Callan
Natural Habit
Kate Callan believes that it is the nature of all things to move toward equilibrium. An example of this principle is crystallization, when molecules are separated and purified into their most natural forms.
By utilizing the unpredictable growth of salt with water, Callan combined the disciplines of art and science to celebrate nature’s power and simplicity.
“By letting go of my control and instead following the path of least resistance in the same way as crystals,” wrote Callan, “I gain balance in my life.”
Natural Habit
First we form habits, then they form us. -Rob Gilbert
Nature is unchanging but expresses all motion -Lao Tzu
If an action is taken, harmony remains - Lao Tzu
Creating but not owning, this is harmony -Lao Tzu