Tikkun Olam-Repair the World, Secret Garden, In the Ways
Hillary L Steel, MK Bailey, Michael Thron

April 1- May 1, 2022

Hillary L Steel, Tikkun Olam – Repair the World

Hillary Steel is an artist and teacher who specializes in weaving and resist dyeing. She incorporates ikat and shibori (in Spanish, jaspe and amarras) into her hand-woven wall pieces. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Buffalo, she began her study of textiles in post-baccalaureate coursework at SUNY Buffalo State College and the University of Pittsburgh, and deepened her knowledge through her travels to Côte d’Ivoire, Peru, Chile, and Mexico. Hillary received a master’s degree in teaching from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and has worked in public and private schools in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the DC metropolitan area as an artist in residence. She has also studied with the Mexican master rebozo weaver Don Evaristo Borboa Casas. Hillary’s work has been displayed in national and international exhibitions in Costa Rica, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and China, and is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the George Washington Textile Museum, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Art Bank Collection, and the American embassies in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Tijuana, Mexico. Steel is a recipient of a 2018 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award and a FY21 Artists and Scholars award from the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council. She has been a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland, since 1994, and maintains a studio in Silver Spring.

MK Bailey, Secret Garden

MK Bailey is a Washington, DC-based painter who creates darkly colorful figurative paintings, digital drawings, and experimental landscapes that reflect her experience of the world. She uses acrylic and digital mediums to explore themes of loneliness, anxiety, nostalgia, and the tension between dream and reality. 

MK’s work has been exhibited both locally and nationally, most recently at Plain Sight DC; Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia; and Rule Gallery in Denver; as well as in flat-file programs at Transformer and ICA Baltimore. MK was the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop Artist-in-Resident in 2020, and was the recipient of a 2021 Art and Humanities Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Michael Thron, In the Ways

Michael Richard Thron (born 1990 in Stamford, CT) is an MFA graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and received his BFA from Syracuse University. His practice investigates materiality, entropy, and object ontology. Through gathering, manipulation, and replication, his work acts as a conduit to examine the evolution of the self, exploring how a sculpture can exist “in” space or “as” space. It sometimes acts as a reminder of personal identity, memory, and the human condition. Among Thron’s honors and awards are the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture, the Mid-Atlantic Sculpture Prize, and the Daniel Ohlke Award. He has served as a resident artist at Salem Art Works and Gilbertsville Expressive Movement, and has exhibited at the London Biennale, the Everhart Museum, and the Katonah Museum of Art. His work has also been featured at the Studio 80 Sculpture Park, Salem Art Works, and the St Anselm’s Abbey public art collections.