Newly Selected Artists 2023

Hillyer selected nineteen artists and one curator from over two hundred submissions that were received in response to our annual Call for Proposals. During the 2023 exhibition cycle, the following artists and curator will receive solo exhibitions and/or a single gallery, beginning in March. Note: The following information is derived from proposals and should not be viewed as “official” promotions of upcoming exhibitions.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

Ernesto Domecq

A HAPPY WORLD

A Happy World is a project made up of twelve works in polychrome pastel on medium and large format canvas. In the project, the artists uses the weapon of war as an analogous symbol element to address, from a critical point of view, social problems around different expressions of violence.

Yu-Jung CHEN

LIGHTSCAPE OF THE SILENCE

Lightscape of the silence explores the depiction of “time” and “trace.” It is an attempt to combine the three heterogeneous configurations of material, fiction and mind in order to reconstruct a new perception of aesthetics outside the empirical system. 

ARTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Elaine Maria Erne

THEY SEE ALL

They See All is part of a series titled The Lives and Traumas of Stuffed Animals. The work encapsulates the personality of individuals, allowing the artist to explore the inner workings of painful relationships. Though far from real, they capture the aura that surrounds people who on the outside appear happy while actually experiencing deep sorrow, loneliness, and tension in their daily lives. 

Ellen Hanauer

THE HOUSE THE CHILDREN BUILT

The House the Children Built is a visual interpretation of stories about her grandfather and her great-grandmother’s challenges working in a textile mill as a child. Hanauer’s fictionalized room depicts hardships, struggles, courage, work ethics, dreams, loneliness, homesickness, coping skills, grief, desire for freedom and liberty, and fulfillment of the American Dream. 

Kenny Harris

INVISIVIVARIUM

Envisivivarium is composed of acrylic shelves and paper figures that represent diverse myths from around the world. Each figure is different, yet rendered in a uniform style, removing cultural signifiers to allow the figures to interact in a neutral space.

Lauren Pakradooni

GRAZING THE CORNERS

In Grazing at Corners, Pakradooni integrates the installation of individual works in sculpture and print into immersive and near theatrical presentations. She creates a lexicon of glyphs that cipher and diffuses the entanglement of image and ornament associated with plant life, considering the slippage between function and beauty. 

ARTISTS AND ONE CURATOR FROM THE DMV AREA

Adam Odomore

TO HARVEST A DREAM BURIED IN DUST

As a guest curator, Adam Odomore aims to show images and works of Black people “thriving, reclining, enjoying small moments of happiness or quiet” or what he calls “the Black Interiority.” Drawing from black artists and feminist writers like Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison, it is his hope that engagement with the works will turn passive viewers into active participants.  

Allan Rosenbaum

SUBSTRATUM

Substratum represents Rosenbaum’s recent wall-mounted sculptures representing a significant shift in my studio practice. The works in the show are non-objective, engendering a dialogue between surface and support, concealment and revelation. The objects reflect the process of their making, featuring layered surfaces that are modeled, carved, collaged, stamped, felted, stained, abraded, leafed and painted. 

Andrews Hladky

MEMORIES FADE, SOIL DEEPENS

In Memories Fade, Soil Deepens, Hladky employs the use of mounted sculptural paintings that explore the point at which images break down. Vacillating between happiness and abandon, illness and depression, the exhibition explores how the images we carry of who we are dissolve into the mysterious workings of the unconscious body.  

Chris Combs

SUPERCYCLE

Supercycle proposed by Chris Combs consists of 8 sculptures with embedded electronics that address the theme of possible futures, through a lens of technologies that are often taken for granted, such as facial recognition, AIs, surveillance, nuclear energy, etc. The title “Supercycle” stands in for a kind of manipulative futurism: performative optimism, with the goal of self-enrichment.

David Allen Harris

THREE SISTERS

The “Three Sisters” story is a retelling of the myth of Osiris. In this version, there are three sisters. The eldest is mysteriously murdered, with the pieces of her body scattered in many different places. The two younger sisters come together to gather up her remains and reform them into a whole body, so her spirit can return to Earth and become ruler of the Underworld. 

Emily Francisco

A BRIEF STUDY OF TIME

A Brief Study of Time” is an installation measuring the present moment in imperfect increments. With a malfunctioning West German pendulum clock and several cameras, microphones and monitors in play, time is presented and amplified in imperfect and irregular measurements. 

George Lorio

CONCERNS

Employing the use of traditional sculpture fabrication methods, such as wood lamination and carving, Concerns is a commentary on ecological devastation and renewal. Felled trees, for example, are reinterpreted as living forms, recalling the scars and healing process of human flesh.

Kelly O’Brien

RESIDENCE TIME

Residence Time is concerned with the intangibility and invisibility of pollutants, their latency and temporal lag, and their capacity to render boundaries porous, from political borders to bodily skin. Drawing on Cape Fear River Basin beginning in Greensboro as a distinct site of water-based pollution, this project will highlight the abstract and residual violence of industrial pollution that flows through our cities. 

Mark Tan

UNORDINARY ITINERARY

In Unordinary Itinerary,  will be a representation of displacement, belonging, and defeat through the Department of Homeland Security’s Arrival/Departure Record. Sympathizing with the desire of a migrant finding place. the exhibition transforms the gallery into a waiting area that embraces the tension between now and the next big thing. This liminal space is thus viewed as transitional and transformative. 

Neville Barbour

BLESSINGS IN THE GRAY

Blessings in Gray is a visual exploration of the narratives that define us. It explores what it is to be human and remarks on the ambivalence of that perspective. Neville explores how conflict can take us out of our comfort zone, yet becoming a force for change. 

Nicole Wandera

WE MEET AGAIN

We Meet Again is a reflection of the artist’s personal journey of healing from trauma and the lessons past experiences have taught her. The exhibition is a dialogue between 3 characters; who I was before the trauma, who I was whiLe it happened, and who I am now that I have survived. 

Shamila Chaudhbary

ATTENTION SURPLUS DISORDER

Attention Surplus Disorder is derived from Chaudhary’s reflection on the The September 11th attacks. As a new mother and recovering policymaker, she created the paintings and objects in this exhibit over a period of ten years (from 2011 to 2022) to express her feelings of despair, loss, confusion, and hope as the United States and its citizens recovered from two decades of the war on terror and its impact on our identities and pyschologies.

Sharon Shapiro

VISIONARY PICNIC

In Visionary Picnic, Shapiro proposes to build a show around her most recent large-scale painting, “The Boulevard is not that bad.” Her work serves as visual discourse between the past and the present, referencing Manet’s Le Déjeuner Sur l’herbe (1863) and Cezanne’s Luncheon on the Grass (1869), yet reconstructing the theme through the lens of women’s empowerment, independence, and camaraderie.

Sookkyung Park

BLOOMING

Blooming was conceived with the belief that one small seed is the source and from that a new living organism is born. The works in this exhibition were created to convey the meaning that if we always live with hope, our lives will bear abundant fruit just as the roots of a plant grow infinitely.