Tag Archives: University of Maryland

Artist Interviews, Current Exhibition

Interview With ‘Open Ended Narratives:’ Artist Schroeder Cherry 

Open Ended Narratives: Mixed Media Assemblages on Wood by Schroeder Cherry from February 18 to April 5, 2025 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Conducted by Olivia DiJulio 

To start, could you tell me a bit about yourself and your background? 

I grew up in Washington, D.C, and I’ve always been an arts kid. When I was a child, I played with blocks, very colorful wooden blocks. I also played with puppets. I received puppets as presents when I was very young in elementary school. In fact, I still have a puppet, I have a string marionette. I started off with hand puppets and then later I got into marionettes by third grade and fourth grade. I stopped playing with puppets when I was in junior high school because it just wasn’t a cool thing to do for high school kids. In college, I started working with puppets again and I like them. Someone introduced me to a puppet master in Chicago and I ended up apprenticing with him for a while. 

When I was in school in D.C. I had the fortune of being exposed to university students from Howard University and they had put together a program called Workshops For Careers in the Arts. Although I was a visual artist, I hung out with the theater kids. I learned a lot from the theater kids, like the importance of rehearsals and preparation,  but I knew I wasn’t one of them. I still apply those lessons today as a museum educator and also as an artist. 

Do you have any experiences that have influenced your creative process?

I actually finished high school in Switzerland. I was an exchange student, and in my senior year I was taking art classes in Switzerland. I went to the Münchenstein high school, Gymnasium Münchenstein. I was exposed to how the Swiss went about doing their artwork, and that was much more regimented and formulaic, but in America it’s much more wide open. I really enjoy traveling and being lost in different cultures finding my way. There was a period where I would almost annually go to a different country just to immerse myself in another culture. How do you go about making your art when you’re exploring unfamiliar territory? All of that feeds into the art practice. Creativity is all about trying something different, something new, and I try to remind myself of that in the process.

Given the title of the exhibit, “Open Ended Narratives:” what draws you to create nonlinear stories for your work?

I’ll start off by sharing a proverb that I came across. It’s an Islamic phrase and it goes: Allah delights in truth, and varying degrees of truth, but even Allah does not like the entire truth. When I first read that, I had to meditate on it for a while. I realized, wow, this means that there is never one story. You know, Allah likes all truth, but never the absolute truth. There’s never one absolute truth. 

With my works, although I might have a narrative in mind, what I appreciate is the visitor being able to look at the work and come up with their own narrative. Sometimes I try to eavesdrop in a gallery to hear what people are saying before I identify myself as the artist. When I come to actually hear what they’re saying, I get that unfiltered response. I would say one of the things I would like people to do is to take time with the work and to look at it. I don’t really expect people to love everything. That’s not my interest. What I really am more interested in is having them just be engaged with the work and come away with something.

That actually leads into our next point. I often hear this question of “can we separate the art from the artist?” What is your stance on art being inherently political, or art for the sake of art? 

Now, I have to say, I had an experience recently in a gallery. It was about political movements and how people resist certain movements. There was this one person and she came to my work, looked at it for like a split second, saw some writing and said, “oh, propaganda.” Now, the piece itself was called Huddle, and it’s actually in the gallery right now. It’s of three teenage boys, they’re standing together and they’re on their phones and they’re communicating with each other. The text says “How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections” so it would actually be talking about the political movement and what Republicans were doing. It wasn’t propaganda, it was news. 

Schroeder Cherry, Future Voters #20, Huddle, 2022. Mixed Media on wood, 36 x 28.5 in.

The viewer brings their own baggage to the work. You can’t disengage from your own experiences when you’re looking at the work. Whatever their experiences are, they’re going to bring that to the piece. It’s always inherently political, because when an artist decides what they’re going to do, that’s an intention. It may or may not be political, but what they’re going through mentally can easily be either political or not.

The next question I want to address is, as a mixed-media artist, how do you decide on a medium? Is there a particular reason why you’re drawn to them? 

The mixed media for me is something that evolved. I was trained as a painter so I painted on canvas, I drew on paper. But I got to a point where I was abusing the canvas. I realized I needed something that had a stronger foundation because then I was attaching objects. So I went to wood, but I didn’t go to wood as a sculptor. I went to wood as a painter who just wanted to work on a flat surface. As I jumped over to these flat panels, I moved into carving and using power tools to shape the edges. I didn’t want to create pieces with straight edges on all sides. That led me wanting to experiment with the texture inside the composition. I got more power tools, I got some burners, and then later I got jigsaws and other saws that allowed me to gouge into the piece. 

How do you go about including the motifs and imagery we see in your work?

There are some things that repeatedly appear in my works and they include, keys, watermelons, playing cards and there may even be glass shards. The keys for me represent tools of access. Everybody I know has got at least one key that they’ve had for more than a year and don’t know what it belongs to. But they don’t want to give this key up. You can either close something up or you can open it up if you have the key, and the same thing goes with locks.

Watermelons for me, I’m reclaiming a negative, racist image as a positive one. First of all, I’m a vegetarian. I like watermelon. When I first moved to Baltimore in spring, it was the rainy season and there was a bumper crop of watermelons. I started eating melons every day, even for breakfast with a croissant. This is a very nutritious fruit and it has been maligned. I learned that historically, watermelons originated in continental Africa. You’ve got these different melons of different colors. In Maryland you have what you call sugar babies, and those melons are yellow on the inside. There’s a great variety of melons and even the seeds are beautiful. Doing a deep dive into the visual of the watermelon, I thought this is something really to work with and we need to pay attention to it.

I want to highlight again your puppeteering experience. That seems really important to you. What is it like as a role of a puppeteer when communicating information through that medium?

First and foremost, it’s a performance for the audience. No matter what shape the puppet is  it could be anything. It could be a book. It could be a stone, but the purpose is its movement in the narrative. I’m doing two things when I’m working with puppetry. I am a visual artist because I’m sewing and constructing them, and I’m a performer because I’m manipulating them in a show. All puppeteers are hybrid artists. When you get a group of puppeteers together, they’ll start talking about their materials and their performances. That’s what they do, it’s about how you make it and how you perform it.

Do you have any stories of performing for older audiences? I feel like puppeteering usually gets associated with children. 

Yeah, there’s a puppet. Her name is Ms. Lily, and she’s actually a puppet docent. I designed her when I was working at the Baltimore Museum of Art years ago and I wanted to create a safe place for adults to play. She’s got this white knit sweater, a red skirt, and black patent leather shoes. She became very, very popular because the adults knew that they could come play. She starts in the beginning and says “This is an adult tour. It’s not for children, if you have a child, please take them to the next room. There’s a workshop there, which is lovely for children, but this is not a tour for children.” That’s how she started the tour and then she would introduce me as her technician. I’m dressed in all black, so I’m fully visible. But she introduces me as her technician and she lets the audience know that if there are any questions, they are to be directed to her and not to the technician because the technician will not be speaking. 

Ms. Lily, Puppet Art Docent, at Wits End Puppet Slam, Takoma Park, MD

Occasionally in Baltimore, we have what we call puppet slams. It’s when a group of puppeteers come together, usually anywhere from six to ten puppeteers or companies will come together and we’ll each have about five to eight minutes on stage. Sometimes those performances are more for adults than they are for children.

I think that is an amazing form of visual and performance art. Thank you for sharing your puppeteering and your mixed media processes. To wrap up our conservation, 10 years from now, where do you think you see yourself in your art?

I would say I hope to still be creating because I’m going to be one of those people who’s still creating when I’m 95, so I want to continue to do that. I would hope that I’m in a place where people are aware of my work and are enjoying it.

Thank you to Dr. Schroder Cherry for this interview, from the Stamp Gallery. 

Schroeder Cherry’s work is included in Open Ended Narratives: at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from February 18 to April 5, 2025. For more information on Schroeder Cherry’s work, visit https://bakerartist.org/portfolios/schroedercherry.  For more information on Open Ended Narratives: and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition

Window to Earth

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Oliver Foley

We Live in the Sky is an exhibition dominated by the tones of paper and black ink, with the vast majority of the works on paper using an achromatic palette. Amongst these works, Tori Ellison’s Windows in the Sky (2024) stands out as one of the exhibition’s only multicolor screenprints. Screen prints only have two discrete values of color: there are areas where the screen allows ink through and areas where the photoresist is hardened and the ink cannot pass through. In order to create the illusion of grays and color gradients, this piece employs a technique called halftone. Halftone prints transform an image into a grid of colored dots, and these dots are scaled in size based on how much of a color should be perceived. In Windows in the Sky, the paper is black, so the space left between the halftone dots of the color results in a darkening of the perceived color. The areas of intersection where the different colored screens meet appears lighter and more saturated, since more of the black background is obscured by the ink.

Tori Ellison, Windows in the Sky (2024)

This dark, yet colorful piece is hung opposite from Tori Ellison’s Sky Writing (2024). The airy, freely floating Sky Writing hangs in stark contrast to the earthy tones of Windows in the Sky. The parchment is semi-translucent like a cloud covering the sun, sparsely adorned with the shadow-like tendrils of calligraphy. One of the central sheets of Sky Writing even uses the same screen as Windows in the Sky, but in a neutral black rather than a hued ink. The bird of the earth and bird of the sky face each other in the gallery space.  The two pieces mirror each other in many ways, including literally: Windows in the Sky is enclosed in a highly reflective glass frame, which almost always reflects the lights of the space and Sky Writing. At times the dark print is overpowered by the reflections, like the reflections of sky on a lake. Standing in this space between Sky Writing and Windows in the Sky conjures up the feeling of floating amidst dense clouds and looking down onto earth through a small window. 

Tori Ellison, Sky Writing (2024)

Tori Ellison’s work is included in We Live in the Sky at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16th to December 7th, 2024. For more information on Ellison, visit https://www.toriellison.com/. For more information on We Live in the Sky and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/articles/stamp_gallery_presents_we_live_sky_home_displacement_identity or visit our instagram @stampgalleryumd.

Current Exhibition

Standing and Showering in Sound: What Center and Periphery Mean in Mami Takahashi’s Audio Journal

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Trinitee Tatum

Some cannot see the forest for the trees—drawn too close to the core, captivated by its light and promises, unable to look back. Others, existing farther away, wholly see it but are paralyzed by its force. The dominant Western, Anglo-Saxon American narrative weaves itself so insidiously into the cultural zeitgeist and media that it’s hard to identify and articulate, like a word lingering on the tip of the tongue or a dog chasing its tail. My initial introduction to this piece was an anecdote about feeling invisible and othered when prompted to retell my family’s “immigration” story in the third grade. The words evaded me as I attempted to articulate how exclusionary the assignment felt as I was asked to frame my ancestors’ enslavement in relation to immigration via Ellis Island. How, when it came to immigrating to the United States, Ellis Island was at the center, and everything else existed in the margins. Combating the tides of this pervasive dominant narrative is a daunting task, but artists like Mami Takahashi wield the power of language to center and platform the voices of immigrants. In her work Audio Journal (2024), Takahashi memorializes the unique and individualized experiences of immigration, the sensations of belonging and disbelonging, in a sonic assemblage.

Our struggles as immigrants, though individual and varying, share a winding path of fear. Some similar fears are shared regardless of the story: social fear related to the fragility of status, fear of differences in culture and accents, fear of missing out on “common knowledge,” and fear of a limited support system in the new country.

Mami Takahashi via website.
Mami Takahashi, Audio Journal, 2024.

Best described as a sound collage, Audio Journal is a harmonic layering of audio recordings from the Austin, Texas, immigrant community, a collaborative collection of 1-minute recordings at 11 AM from immigrant communities, and interviews from UMD’s international community. Activated by stepping into a marked circle on the gallery floor, a directional speaker bathes visitors from above in a blend of immigrant stories interwoven with fleeting sounds of daily life. The speaker’s design makes the sound feel as if it emanates from the listener’s own body, creating an intimate, almost internal experience that dissipates upon leaving the listening area, with sound softly spilling from the shower’s edges. Artist Takahashi’s use of a directional speaker here “investigates intimacy, though not necessarily closeness, in public spaces.” The speaker itself embodies a boundary– a threshold– separating the center from the periphery, powerfully demonstrating how voices at the center can overwhelm those on the margins.

Krystof Wodiczko, Monument for the Living, 2020.

Takahashi’s work of using language to hold space for immigrant voices parallels Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko’s ongoing projects of documenting the lives of immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized communities. Wodiczko’s Monument (2020) is the superimposition of the likenesses and spoken narratives of twelve resettled refugees onto the 1881 monument to Admiral David Glasgow Farragut in Madison Square Park. Reimagining the statue of this Union hero challenges the preconceived notions of which stories are preserved and honored for future generations– and which are left to fade into obscurity.

Audio Journal uses the act of standing to hold space for immigrant voices, urging visitors to make both a literal and metaphorical commitment to honor the narratives, experiences, and challenges of immigrant communities. Standing becomes an intentional, active exertion of the body—a stance that amplifies voices often overshadowed by dominant narratives. It acknowledges the physical and emotional labor involved in sharing and receiving these stories, inviting visitors to stand, listen, and shower in the sound.

Mami Takahashi’s work is included in We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024. 

For more information on Mami Takahashi, visit https://mamitakahashi.art/. 

Current Exhibition

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Paradoxes of Self-Expression in Mami Takahashi’s Writing Myself

We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity from October 16 to December 7, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

Mami Takahashi’s video performance Writing Myself is a fascinating exploration of identity, language, and the paradoxes of self-expression. In this work, Takahashi uses writing as a tool not to reveal herself but to disappear, turning what could be a deeply personal form of communication into an act of obscuration. By transforming writing into a form of erasure, she invites us to contemplate the contradictions inherent in sharing our experiences while simultaneously shielding them from understanding.

The piece unfolds as Takahashi writes in Japanese –her mother tongue– on transparent film, using this familiar language to express anecdotes, quotes, memories, and thoughts. Born and raised in Tokyo, Takahashi often draws on themes of displacement and distance from home, and the use of Japanese in her work becomes a way of grounding herself within these feelings. The physicality of her process is deliberate and measured, it feels both intimate and meditative. As she writes, the text gradually builds up, creating a dense layer of characters that ultimately forms a barrier between her and the viewer. Her presence, once clearly visible, becomes obscured behind a wall of words, a literal screen of her thoughts that paradoxically makes them unreadable.

In Writing Myself, Takahashi wrestles with the tensions between expression and obscurity. On the one hand, writing is an act of communication—a way to connect, to leave behind a trace of one’s thoughts and experiences. But by layering the text until it becomes indecipherable, she complicates the act of sharing through writing. Her words, meant to be seen, are concealed, much like memories that fade with time or thoughts that lose clarity in translation. This paradox reflects the struggle between the desire to express oneself fully and the instinct to hide or protect certain truths.

  Mami Takahashi, “Writing Myself”, 2015, Single-channel Video, 03:00 min    

Takahashi’s work also comments on the way we face reality or escape from it. Writing, in many ways, serves as a means of confronting one’s experiences, offering a way to make sense of the world. Yet in Writing Myself, writing also becomes a means of retreat—a way for the artist to distance herself from the viewer. As she disappears behind her own words, she creates a space where the boundary between revelation and concealment becomes blurred. It’s as if she is using language to construct a mask, one that hides her while simultaneously revealing the contours of her thoughts.

For those who do not read Japanese, the text remains an opaque screen, inviting them to reflect on the limits of their understanding. Even for those who can read the language, the layering of characters turns the script into a visual rather than legible experience. The tension between the familiar and the inaccessible is present, echoing the complexities of cultural identity and the experiences of those who navigate multiple worlds.

Writing Myself serves as a powerful meditation on the contradictions of self-expression. Takahashi’s methodical writing process becomes an act of introspection, yet the final product is a wall that prevents true insight into her mind. It is a reminder that the act of sharing is never straightforward—every word we offer can also be a means of concealing, and every attempt to communicate can result in further mystery.

Through Writing Myself, Mami Takahashi challenges us to reconsider what it means to understand another person’s experiences. She invites us into her world, only to remind us that some aspects will always remain out of reach. Her piece, like the layers of text she builds, is a beautiful contradiction—an artwork that is as much about what it conceals as what it reveals. It serves as a reminder that art, much like language, is often most powerful when it embraces the spaces between expression and obscurity.

Mami Takahashi’s work is included in We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 16 to December 7, 2024.

For more information on Mami Takahashi, visit https://mamitakahashi.art/.

For more information on We Live in the Sky: Home, Displacement, Identity and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.

Current Exhibition

Securi ex machina, or Safe from the machine

The Digital Landscape from August 26 to October 5, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Trinitee Tatum

For an instant, I stood in front of Chris Combs’ Pollination (2023). It simultaneously stole my face and voice, projecting a virtual me before the physical me. The real me. I should have felt violated, exposed, but I stayed. I let Pollination search and seize me. I spoke so it could hear me. I was compelled to let it document me. A moment of pirated digitalization transformed into a prolonged, authorized archival of the self for my own benefit. What led me, and many others, to indulge in and consent to Pollination’s surveillance? Are we hoping to see if technology perceives us the way we see ourselves? Or is it the hope that this piece documents our existence forever, so we may never be forgotten? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the unearthing of the algorithmic and systematic indulgence of surveillance for the sake of vanity and ego.

Chris Combs, Pollination, 2023. Aluminum, DIN terminal blocks, wire, screens, computers, 5×4.5×4’. Screenshot via artist’s website.

Pollination is an interactive flower-shaped piece that responds to faces and speech. It uses a camera to recognize faces, transforming them into rotating flower-like shapes, while a microphone listens to speech and displays its transcription on multiple small screens. However, Pollination does not fulfill the desire to be forever etched into the ether as nothing is uploaded from the piece. It uses “whisper.cpp” to transcribe audio entirely within the device and the facial recognition is powered by OpenCV. The closed circuited experience of Pollination means the user’s interaction is disposable, ephemeral. It’s a denial of permanent documentation.

Search results of security camera selfies on Pinterest.

On both systemic and individualistic levels, surveillance is often driven by concerns of fear, vulnerability, and a struggle for control. Surveillance pacifies through the external imposition of order, creating an illusion of security and stability through acts of monitoring, predicting, and understanding. However, this sense of authority is often superficial, and surveillance’s inherently parasitic nature demands data for eternity. Only major organizations have been able to harness the beast by overtly passing the labor of watching on to the users. Big tech companies create opportunities for self-surveillance and external monitoring via social media, but rather than creating a sense of control, this often exacerbates feelings of inadequacy and insecurities. Intentionally or unintentionally, users equate their self-worth to their social media metrics and are driven to curate a perfect public image to feel both internal and external validation. The more susceptible users watch themselves and others via digital networks, the more the images and algorithms reinforce their insecurities, where they compare and conflate themselves with the idealized, curated lives on their feeds. This creates a feedback loop where insecurity fuels surveillance, and surveillance fuels further insecurity.

Screenshot of ChatGPT when prompted to consider its own participation in self surveillance.

Ultimately, (self)-surveillance driven by insecurity is an endless and futile pursuit of reassurance as it only temporarily assuages fears– big, existential fears of the unknown, the fear of losing control, the fear of mortality, the fear of fate. The fear that we are here, and then we are gone. This reassurance, however, is fleeting, a temporary respite. The more one surveils, the more one realizes that complete control or total knowledge is impossible. Look Pollination in the eye, speak to its mic, but seek personal satisfaction beyond the screens. 

Chris Combs’ work is included in The Digital Landscape at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 26 to October 5, 2024. 

Current Exhibition, Uncategorized

Subjugating Spaces and Bodily Autonomy: Resistance with Michelle Lisa Herman

The Digital Landscape from August 26 to October 5, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Olivia DiJulio 

As a woman with disabilities, my work is often multisensory and immersive, as I feel it is important to provide multiple ways for people to experience the artwork.

Michelle Lisa Herman

Every day, we navigate the architecture that surrounds us, interacting with buildings, walkways, and streets that were designed and approved by planners and stakeholders. But who truly defines the physical and social purposes of our spaces? Whose needs and experiences are prioritized in the creation of our environments? The Digital Landscape features three of Michelle Lisa Herman’s multimedia works that deconstruct the history of stigmatizing narratives surrounding disability, and to give viewers the agency to reimagine the body as it is in space. 

What inspires and drives the design of architecture? This pressing question is central to Herman’s exploration of physical and social spaces. Self-identifying as a woman with disabilities, Herman critiques the hegemony that buildings and institutions of power support. Untitled (To Bear the Weight) #2 (2022) is a small video installation that projects Herman’s moving body on a paper model of Bremen’s town hall. Viewers can circle the entire model, allowing for an interpersonal viewing experience. Herman’s inspiration for this piece was found after observing 16th-century architecture during her exchange program in Bremen, Germany. 

Michelle Lisa Herman, Untitled (To Bear the Weight) #2, 2022. Video installation. Video courtesy of the Artist.

The medium of the video projection connects the themes of communication, societal norms, and technology of The Digital Landscape. Acting as the pillars, columns, and arcways, Herman uses her body to make an unconventional impression. The most notable part of the piece is the reference to Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. The iconography of the Vitruvian Man portrayed by Herman’s body emphasizes the dominant, Eurocentric nature of architectural design. Incorporating her body into the building forms a powerful message of resistance against the idealized calculations of the “white, able male body”, as described by Herman. In realizing this connection, Herman challenges the viewer to rethink how power and design are interconnected. Beyond the physical spaces that surround us, the unnoticed, invisible roots of power fuel systems of oppression through collective ignorance. 

Untitled (Construction) #2 (2024) and Untitled (Construction) #8 (2024) are from the same collection of works using casts of Herman’s limbs to build structural forms. This series combines the delicate positions of her arms and hands in tandem with other objects to create a surreal composition. The visual contrast of the organic and rigid forms among the colorful lighting conveys an archaic feel reminiscent of historically European, marble buildings.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Lisa Herman, Untitled (Construction) #2 and #8, 2024. Giclee on fabric mounted to aluminum. Images courtesy of the Artist.

Herman’s pieces demonstrate the importance of activist art and critical messaging through media. Instead of encouraging stereotypical narratives, Herman reclaims what is stolen from artists with disabilities. Reminiscent of the “Supercrip” label, disability should not be an inspirational model for non-disabled people. Agency to those working against instilled norms of disability, Herman’s work reflects upon independence from oppressive institutions. She reminds us of the reality that many marginalized identities face daily about their bodies. The fetishization of disability thrives from portraying it as a superpower, obscuring the very real experiences behind it.   

The ways we navigate the world are defined by the bodies we were born with and the boundaries set by society. However, Michelle Lisa Herman is one of many voices that address the importance of inclusive design and solidarity for marginalized groups. While it can be easy to assume that our reality is fully optimized, broadening our senses and perspectives is essential for embracing the experiences of others. In presenting The Digital Landscape, both To Bear the Weight and Construction subjugate the social constructions that define our public and private spaces. 

Michelle Lisa Herman’s work is included in The Digital Landscape at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 26 to October 5, 2024. For more information on Michelle Lisa Herman, visit https://www.michellelisaherman.com/.  For more information on The Digital Landscape and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery. 

Current Exhibition

The Power of What We Don’t See: Reflections on Mollye Bendell’s Outgrown

The Digital Landscape from August 26 to October 5, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Noa Nelson

The Power of What We Don’t See: Reflections on Mollye Bendell’s Outgrown

In the modern world, we’re conditioned to focus on what we can see, on the immediate and the tangible. We view our surroundings, assessing value and importance based on what is in front of us. But art often asks us to dig deeper, to look beyond the obvious and consider the unseen forces at play. Mollye Bendell’s Outgrown (2022), with its engraved acrylic panels and augmented reality (AR) application, pushes us to do just that — it invites us to confront the unseen and the forgotten.

In Outgrown, Bendell resurrects the often-overlooked weeds that once grew in a space, visualizing a world where these overlooked plants thrive. Using AR, viewers look through a tablet provided with the installation and see the weeds rising up from the acrylic panels, reclaiming space in a way that transcends human control. These spirits are not just remnants of a past ecosystem but also a vision of a possible future, where the weeds have evolved into various flowers that grow and intertwine. Each one builds off the others, forming complex, beautiful networks of foliage. The physical panels, approximately 4×6 feet in size (all together), glow with an eerie beauty, but it’s the AR experience that elevates the piece from mere aesthetic object to a meditation on nature, memory, and visibility.

 

Mollye Bendell, Outgrown, 2022. Engraved acrylic panels, augmented reality application. Photo Courtesy of the Artist.

 

Bendell’s work operates on multiple levels, but what stands out most is its insistence on honoring what we don’t see. The weeds she portrays are not the curated flowers we often associate with beauty in gardens, but the plants we ignore, dismiss, or actively remove from sight. By presenting their new forms in AR, she makes visible the life that has been pushed out of view — both literally and metaphorically. The new form these weeds take in their resurrection is striking. They blossom into a variety of flowers, a kaleidoscope of growth and beauty. Bendell transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, reminding us that even the most disregarded forms of life have their own potential to bloom into something magnificent. The resilience of these weeds turns into a celebration of their ability to persist, adapt, and thrive.

The piece also speaks to the power of AR itself — a technology that overlays digital images on the real world, making the invisible visible. Through AR, Outgrown transforms what would be a static installation into a dynamic, evolving interaction. This element reflects the tension between what we perceive with our eyes and what actually exists around us. Weeds, much like many aspects of life, often go unnoticed until something or someone draws our attention to them. In Bendell’s work, the use of AR acts as a metaphor for the limitations of human perception. It asks us to question what else we are not seeing. What exists beyond our narrow field of vision? 

There’s also a deeply ecological undercurrent in Outgrown. In many ways, it presents a post-apocalyptic vision — not of a world devoid of life, but of one where nature has “outgrown” human control. The weeds, given the space to thrive, suggest that even in the absence of human cultivation, life persists. Yet, what could have been a harsh takeover of an overgrown wilderness instead becomes something unexpectedly beautiful. The weeds evolve into flowers of different kinds, building off one another, creating a web of new growth, connected in their vitality. This post-human biodiversity is a haunting vision, but one with a redemptive quality. It’s a reminder that the natural world doesn’t need us to survive. In fact, it might do better without our interference. The ghosts of the weeds are both a eulogy for the plants we’ve displaced and a warning of the resilience of nature, which won’t sit idle forever.

This quiet rebellion of weeds is symbolic of the many things in life that exist outside our perception — the overlooked, the forgotten, the marginalized. Yet, when given the space, these elements flourish in ways we might not have imagined. Bendell reminds us that what we dismiss or attempt to control will not remain hidden forever. In Outgrown, these spirits of plants rise not in defiance but in quiet beauty, suggesting that nature’s capacity for growth is beyond what we can imagine.

The power of Outgrown lies not only in its visual elements but in its conceptual framework. It’s an exploration of how much exists beyond the scope of human vision, and a critique of our tendency to ignore what doesn’t fit neatly into our view of the world. By making visible what is usually unseen, Bendell asks us to reconsider our relationship with the environment, with the invisible forces around us, and with the things we choose not to see.

Ultimately, Outgrown challenges us to pay attention. The beauty and resilience of the natural world exist beyond our gaze, and just because we don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. There is power in what we overlook, in the spaces we leave behind, and in the things we fail to acknowledge. Bendell’s piece asks us to expand our perception, to honor what grows in the margins, and to consider that the unseen may be just as important — if not more so — than what is in front of us. And as the weeds in Outgrown transform into flowers, we are reminded that beauty can arise from what we least expect, building and growing in ways we never imagined.

 

Mollye Bendell’s work is included in The Digital Landscape at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 26 to October 5, 2024.

For more information on Mollye Bendell, visit https://mollyebendell.com/

For more information on The Digital Landscape and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery

Current Exhibition

Seeing Again: An Exploration of Concepts in Margaret Walker’s ‘living’ and ‘dressing’

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Palinopsia from April 23 to May 17, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Rachel Schmid-James

“The past often repeats itself” is a popular saying in the modern world, but there is much more truth in it than just surface level. When I am performing a task such as cooking or riding the train, I am hit with memories of holding my grandfather’s hand while boarding the MARC or getting flour all over myself while helping my grandmother make red beans and rice. In the Stamp Gallery’s latest exhibition Palinopsia, artist Margaret Walker breathes life into this feeling, showing that the past cannot always be clearly distinguished from the present.

Each artist in this show brought their unique interpretation of the idea of “palinopsia” to this exhibit, each exploring a different aspect of the term. A medical condition, palinopsia causes images to be repeated in a person’s field of vision after the stimuli have been removed. The word itself comes from the combining of the Greek words palin (again) and opsia (seeing), which Walker engages with through exploring the ties between generations. She portrays images of her family members and herself over and over again to encourage the audience to engage with the themes, just as the word palinopsia suggests. 

The first thing the viewer sees when they turn to the left of the gallery is a transparent piece of silk printed with images of a woman covering a series of small, square mirrors. The woman, Walker herself, stands at different angles, her image repeating over and over again side by side, the mirror reflecting not only Walker but the viewer as well. The work, titled dressing, not only uses the body to explore palinopsia but also involves the viewer in the experience. It seems to ask the viewer to reflect on the ways their body and memory interact, as Walker writes in her artist statement that her work “explores the memory of her body as a tool to connect family histories.”

Margaret Walker, dressing (2024), photographic prints on silk, mirrors.

Composed of four hanging photographic prints on silk, her piece living explores generations and family ties, and the repetition of images in the same way people with the condition palinopsia, experience life. Each of the prints depicts Walker, her mother, or her grandmother doing textile work. When looking straight at the prints, which have been hung with space between them, the images of all three women blend, appearing as one person even though the photos were taken years apart. The sheerness of the silk makes each layer appear to float and shift slightly in the breeze, reminiscent of the fleeting nature of memory. The fluidity of the work combined with Walker’s storytelling creates a beautiful testament to the generations that came before each of us. 

Margaret Walker, living (2024), photographic prints on silk.

Both of these pieces present something likely familiar to the audience. In some way or another, every person is inherently connected to the past, especially as it relates to their own family and friends. Even the family or ancestors we never met are still important, for they continue to be seen in the features on our faces or the stories we are told by those who came before us. Just last night I was sitting with my grandmother and my new puppy Zipper when the conversation switched to my late grandfather’s old dog. Although in the moment it was just fun to share the memories and stories we recalled, I realize now when thinking of Walker’s work that it is so much more than that. Someday my grandmother will pass away and it will be up to me to carry on the stories and descriptions I have of her. My children and grandchildren may not know her personally, but just like in Walker’s work I hope they can draw the parallels when looking at photos of me alongside her and consider the fleeting nature of time and generations, but also the deep impact of memory and experience. I hope viewers can see in their own lives the ways palinopsia, or “again seeing,” is present, within their families or otherwise.

Walker’s work is included in Palinopsia at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from April 23 to May 17, 2024.

Current Exhibition

Authenticity, AI, and the New East in Varvara Tokareva’s ‘Utopia’

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Palinopsia from April 23rd to May 17th, 2024, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by James Cho

What is a utopia? Can one act as a facade to hide a dystopia? In Varvara Tokareva’s three Utopia pieces, she questions these same sentiments about the state of the USSR during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Alongside this inquiry, Tokareva also questions the authenticity of AI as a generative art form. Together, her work has viewers inquire about how we remember the nature of the USSR and how we currently perceive AI. 

 

Varvara Tokareva, Utopia II (Screen Print), 2024.

Per the historical record, it is possible to answer both of these subjects. Whether in the form of digital prints, screen prints, or videos generated using AI and archival sources, Tokareva’s Utopia pieces reflect how the Soviet Union wanted to portray itself as a strong, perfect, and militaristic state. In essence, a perfect utopia. However, when thinking more deeply about the time period, it’s possible to discern how Tokareva reveals the true dystopia of the USSR. In her prints and videos, dozens of gymnasts choreograph themselves into perfect pyramids or parade around an open field at the Summer Olympics in 1980. Behind these literal performances hides the horror of not just the dozens of proxy wars that the USSR and United States conducted during the Cold War, but also the government’s treatment of people within the Soviet Union. The unity that Tokareva showcases in her works as a recreation of the Soviet aesthetic contrasts sharply with the USSR’s abuse and manipulation of countries in the Eastern Bloc or “Comecon.”: a system that first appeared under Stalin’s “Cominform” and then under the Warsaw Pact, notwithstanding the military crackdown in East Germany through the Berlin Wall as part of the larger “Iron Curtain” that separated Western and Eastern Europe. 

Varvara Tokareva, Utopia I (Digital Prints), 2024.

The focus of Utopia, the Olympic Games in Soviet Moscow that took place in July 1980, is a marvellous example of the USSR’s desire to hide this dystopia. At this time, the USSR had been facing allegations of its athletes using testosterone to improve their performance in previous Games. On top of this, due to the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan months earlier, the United States and multiple other countries boycotted the Summer Olympics in 1980 and a large number of European countries that attended competed under the flag of the Olympic Games rather than their native flags. Thus, despite the Soviet perfectionism displayed in the generative models that Tokareva used to create Utopia I-III, the Olympics that year were full of strife and global disunity.

This absurdity and dystopia that would not come to an end until the election of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 and his democratic reforms carry similar sentiments to our treatment of AI-generated art today. In the same way that we remember the USSR as full of conflict and superficiality, the general consensus surrounding generative art is the same. Art made by AI is commonly seen as hollow and quite literally artificial. In using this form of art to depict the Soviet Union, Tokareva brilliantly marries the art form and subject together to represent common views and memories of the Union and AI-generated art. 

Varvara Tokareva, Utopia III (Three-channel video on three monitors), 2023-2024.

As a medium, the AI-generated prints even function in the same way as the USSR does. From afar, the works look normal, but when getting a closer look viewers can see missing faces, extra body parts, and other minor imperfections created by the AI. With the USSR, the performances at the Olympic Games and propaganda spread about the success of the Communist party and Soviet Union during the Cold War hid how people in the Eastern Bloc and Russia were impoverished and struggling to eke out a living. 
Altogether, Utopia is a perfect example of the exhibition’s title, Palinopsia, which are visual symptoms in which there is an abnormal persistence or recurrence of an image in time. Though the USSR is gone today, the image of a utopia in Russia still persists. The ongoing war in Ukraine is a reminder of the persistence and recurrence of a dystopia being hidden behind puppet governments.

 

Current Exhibition, Explore, Uncategorized

Exploring Reality in Palinopsia

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Palinopsia from April 23 to May 17, 2024 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

What is palinopsia? Palinopsia refers to a fascinating visual phenomenon where individuals repeatedly see images even after the original visual stimuli have disappeared. In the exhibition Palinopsia, artists Trevon Jakaar Coleman, Jill Stauffer, Varvara Tokareva, and Margaret Walker offer their unique perspectives on what is real versus seen, inviting visitors to delve into the realm of perception and interpretation.

According to Coleman’s website, his works aim to “challenge expectation, iconography, language, and space, creating a distance that leaves room for inquiry” (http://www.trevonjakaar.com/). In Palinopsia, Coleman’s works draw inspiration from comic books and other non-fiction sources. The alien-like figures and terrain are what make his works particularly captivating. At the same time, there are elements of the real world. For instance, in Untitled Creatures #1-4, videos of natural landscapes are encapsulated by what seem like extraterrestrial beings. By blurring the line between reality and fiction, Coleman challenges the idea of the world we know. Is there more to what is visible to us? Is there another world that we are not capable of seeing? Another way in which Coleman achieves his broader purpose of “leav[ing] room for inquiry” is how he titles his work. All four pieces in Palinopsia begin with “untitled” in their names. This suggests that Coleman wants the viewer to engage in his work actively. He encourages his audience to rely on their individual perception to create meaning from his work rather than setting an expectation for what his work represents via a title. 

Trevon Jakaar Coleman, Untitled Creatures #1-4 (2024), Mixed Media.

Tokareva’s work, in particular, compliments the underlying themes of Coleman’s pieces. What I found most intriguing about her pieces is how she incorporates different AI tools to portray history. Her research delves into the “New East”, utilizing archival visuals “to capture a significant change within society” as described on her website (https://printingmadnessforever.com/). Looking through the eyes of the audience, discerning the extent that the original source materials (from the Olympics) have been manipulated by AI proves challenging, prompting the question of AI’s authenticity. Like Coleman, Tokareva blurs the line between what is real and what isn’t by drawing attention to the unreliability of perception. More specifically, her work reiterates the importance of knowing the source of information. In Utopia III, three TV screens display videos of the Olympic Games in Soviet Moscow in July 1980. To what extent do these AI-generated videos include real elements of the Olympic Games? Can we even distinguish what’s real or not if our perception of the East is biased? Those that view her work, knowing that it incorporates AI, will question the authenticity of the content and walk away without a set opinion. In Tokareva’s work, the line between reality and AI is blurred due to the Western gaze, largely dictated by Western media forms, of what the East was and what it is now. 

Varvara Tokareva, Utopia III (2023-2024), Three-Channel Video on Three Monitors.

Coleman and Tokareva’s works capture the inconsistency of perspective and consequent interpretation by prompting their audience to wonder what is real and what isn’t. In the same way that palinopsia works, their works serve as visual phenomena that merge real and perceived. The significance of doing so is that we, as audience members, are compelled to reconsider our preconceptions and confront the complexities of our visual and ideological perspectives. Through their art, we are pushed to reconsider what we know to be true: our interpretations of space, history, and culture. By challenging our understanding, their art sparks intellectual dialogue while encouraging the exploration and acceptance of diverse perspectives.

Trevon Jakaar Coleman and Varvara Tokareva’s works are included in Palinopsia at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from April 23 to May 17, 2024. Coleman will be hosting a Analog Projection Workshop with Jill Stauffer April 29, 7-9pm. Tokareva will be hosting a Cyanotype Workshop with Margaret Walker May 7, 3-4pm. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information on Coleman, visit trevonjakaar.com and on Instagram @trevonjakaar. For more information on Tokareva, visit https://printingmadnessforever.com/. For more information on Palinopsia and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.