Outside In
Outside In the next group exhibition at Ours curated by Monica Kinsey, opens Tuesday, July 22 with a reception 6:30–8pm!
Shades of summer feature in Outside In, with cyanotypes and prints by Sarah Irvin, large-scale oil paintings by Lydia Mutone, naturally dyed textiles and watercolors by Megan Koeppel, and hanging sculptures by Mariah Barden Jones.
Like a switch flipped on, summertime brings extra sunshine and extra social time, drawing us outside from our realms within. The show considers the dynamics between inner and outer selves echoed by interior and exterior spaces; between a sweltering sun and a cool oasis.
Enter the world of Outside In by listening to the official playlist here.
Outside In is on view 7/22–9/19. Check out the show during the reception on 7/22, by appointment, or during Ours workshops & events (register in advance @ours.today). DM @mernicer to schedule a time to visit! For purchase inquiries, please reach out to artists directly. See Artist Bios for contact info.
Poster by @cbdknives
Artist Bios
Sarah Irvin
Sarah Irvin earned a Master of Fine of Arts from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia. Irvin has been featured in more than twenty-five solo shows, as well as more than seventy-five group exhibitions, across the United States and abroad. Irvin’s work is included in the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Capital One, Four Seasons Hotel, Federal Reserve Bank, and Royal Caribbean, as well as the private collections of Quirk Hotel and the University of Richmond. She is the founder of the Artist Parent Index, a searchable database of artists making work about their experience with reproduction and caring for their children. Irvin is represented by Bond Millen Gallery in Richmond, and Kathryn Markel Fine Arts and Massey Klein Gallery, both in New York City. She is a curator, an adjunct instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Visual Arts Center of Richmond teacher.
Irvin’s ongoing Cyanotype Archives series constitutes dozens of overlapping archives documenting and organizing objects used by her child. Each work (or archive) has categorical parameters dictating what is included, and any object could appear in multiple archives depending on the criteria. Archives and the language used to create them are presented as a plurality of systems arising from decision-making processes. The archivist-as-artist-as-parent is situated as an agent of language (re)production.
In her Public/Private series, Irvin layered the words "public" and "private" in a blue-and-red-color-scheme that can be viewed with 3D glasses to produce an immersive yet disorienting experience. As a queer woman, she is interested in exploring the delineation between public and private spaces, how these spaces impact each other, and how our definitions of them produce implications both personally and within the larger legal system. While these two types of spaces are never fully stable or discrete from one another, we find it critical to define them as inherently different. Through the visual blurring of the words “public” and “private”, Irvin hopes that this series creates a reminder that because we actively construct and reconstruct these vital concepts, they are in jeopardy of being fully deconstructed if we do not hold on to and defend them.
@sarahirvinart
Mariah Barden Jones
Mariah is an artist, writer, designer, educator, MFA holder, seahorse girl, etc. based in Richmond, VA. She currently teaches Graphic Design at VCU, co-organizes Desire Paths, writes the gossip column at Zona Motel, and runs clique- - - - -books.com with her cat Seahorse.
Mariah’s practice delves into themes of impermanence, exploring the intersection of materiality and memory, the fragility of body and mind.
Through sculptural forms, installations, mixed-media pieces and hand-coded websites, she engages contemplation on the transience of corporeality and the emotional affect of violent trauma — how we construct our identities through the narratives we create, and how those narratives can be reshaped by experiences that alter our cognitive landscapes.
@cbdknives
Lydia Mutone
Lydia Mutone (b. 1999, New Jersey) is a painter based in Richmond, Virginia. She received her BFA in 2021 from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a former resident of the Visual Arts Center (Richmond, VA), the Anderson Gallery (Richmond, VA), and Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Snowmass, CO). Her work has been exhibited at 1708 Gallery, Field, ADA Gallery, Try-me Gallery, Secret Flowers, and the Anderson Gallery.
Mutone’s musings center on figures within intimate settings and warping memory. She employs abstraction by pushing images back and forth within a digital editing realm and funneling the compilation into oil paint. Mutone works to mediate her opaque geometric paint application with the overall impact of translucent layered fluidity. This obfuscation of her digital touch plays with legibility and allows the viewer to piece together the composition. Duplications of a single subject are in motion, yet housed in a stagnant space. In these dramatic interactions, limbs are revealed and concealed as the figures stumble over each other to take the foreground. Mutone uses this visual layering to encapsulate a shift on time, allowing figures movement. Her recent work has shifted to a narrative realm where the viewer can glimpse a moment of mystical interactions unfolding.
@Lydiamutone
Megan Koeppel
Megan Koeppel (she/they) is a visual artist originally from Milwaukee, WI. Their current practice centers on quilted works that incorporate natural dye techniques, embroidery, and figurative drawings. She was selected to participate in the artist-in-residence program at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts from 2022-2023. Since participating in this residency she has been a visual artist fellow at Civitella Raneri (Umbertide, Italy 2023), a Bresler Resident at VisArts Center (Rockville, MD 2023), received the annual Trawick Prize Emerging Artist Award (Bethesda, MD, 2023), and was a 2022 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalist (Baltimore MD). Koeppel has exhibited work at notable institutions such as The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD 2022), the University of Wisconsin Madison Main Gallery (Madison, WI 2019) and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (Philadelphia, PA 2018). She is currently pursuing an MFA in the Craft/Material Studies Program at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The works included in Outside In are part of Megan Koeppel’s 2023 body of work titled Collective Celebrations of the Body. This body of work stemmed from research into the traditional nude muse in painting and the history of natural pigments, resulting in the desire to celebrate the artist's body as maker and subject. For these works, Koeppel combines her interest in painting and textile by layering screen printing, figurative embroidery, appliqué, and the art and science of natural dyes.
meganclairekoeppel.com
koeppelmegan@gmail.com
@megankoeppel