Target Gallery

The newest group exhibition Habitats in Target Gallery, the contemporary exhibitions space of Torpedo Factory Art Center, poses the question, “What makes a habitat a home?” Habitats is on view Friday, August 9, through Sunday, September 22, 2019. The opening celebration on August 9 begins at 7 pm during The Late Shift: Habitats.

The artists’ response to this founding question opens a larger exploration of the relationship between humanity and our surrounding environments. How are we impacting the world around us? Is this relationship symbiotic or destructive? The selected artists address these questions and raise new ones. Work is presented in a diversity of media, from sculpture and photography to video and virtual reality.

The juror for this exhibition was Ellyn Weiss, a D.C.-based independent artist and curator, who formerly practiced environmental law. She selected 22 works by artists from across the United States, six of whom are local to the region.

“Each of the 22 works of art here is a truly individual response to the challenge to respond to the meaning of habitat,” she said. “From the threatening to the violent to the charming and poignant, the work spans a wide range of emotions and invites reflection on our human place in the universe of living things.”

The participating artists are:

Laura Ahola-Young, Pocatello, ID
Corinne Beardsley, Brooklyn, NY
Betsy Byers, St. Peter, MN
Ceci Cole McInturff, Alexandria, VA
Matt Coombs, Philadelphia, PA
Adam Crosson, New Orleans, LA
Delna Dastur, McLean, VA
Emily Dzieweczynski, Minneapolis, MN
Pam Eichner, Silver Spring, MD
Alice Fornari, Washington, DC
Sarbani Ghosh, Brooklyn, NY
Christina Hunt Wood, Delhi, NY
Kamille Jackson, Woodbridge, VA
Yasemin Kackar-Demirel, Westchester, NY
Pamela A. MacGregor, McClure, OH
James Maria, Reading, PA
Michael Marks, Minneapolis, MN
PJ Mills, Miami, FL
Daniele Piasecki, Martinsburg, WV
Nancy Ramsey, Alexandria, VA
Lisa Sanders, Newark, NJ
J.D. Scott, Santa Fe, NM
Bethany Springer, Fayetteville, AR

Corinne Beardsley’s Torso plays on this relationship between humanity and nature by carving out an abstracted human torso from gypsum. The sculpture looks like an excavated form. It recalls the natural cycle of life and how our bodies will one day be reconstituted back into the earth.

Adam Crosson’s video If At All is a meditative examination of relationship between humans and the Mississippi River, where the dichotomy of natural resources and industry come to a head as public and private interests collide.

The exhibition also features an interactive VR video/painting collaboration Melting the Grotto by artists Betsy Byers and Emily Dzieweczynski. It puts the viewer headlong into a swiftly melting glacier as a commentary on the destruction of natural resources.

Habitats runs Friday, August 9, through Sunday, September 22, 2019. The opening reception will be Friday, August 9, 7 – 10 pm, with a Gallery Talk featuring artist comments at 8 pm. Target Gallery is open daily from 10 – 6 pm and until 9 pm on Thursdays.

Read the Juror’s Statement

About the Juror
Ellyn Weiss is a Washington, DC-based visual artist in two and three dimensions, as well as an independent curator, with studios in Mt. Rainier, MD and Truro, MA. She has had more than 25 solo or featured shows and has participated in numerous juried and curated exhibitions. Ellyn works in a wide variety of media; the materials used in recent shows include wax, oilbar, dry pigment, wire, plastic dip and tar. Ellyn’s work has for many years been inspired by the imagery of biological and natural structures. Much of her work love the past decade deals with the effects of global climate change.

Ellyn is committed to engagement with the world around her. Prior to becoming a full-time artist in 1997, she practiced environmental law. Her work included serving as General Counsel to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which she still serves as a member of the Board of Directors. She is also on the Boards of the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and was a founding Board member of the Touchstone Foundation for the Arts.