Feeling Big and Being Small

Contracommon is proud to present Feeling Big & Being Small, a group show which explores differing approaches to the making of contemporary landscape art.

Curated by Contracommon studio member Morgan Gage, Feeling Big & Being Small encourages viewers to reflect upon how diversity in image-creation lends credit to the power of individual introspection, which both contrasts and illuminates the feelings of smallness imparted by vast interconnected landscapes. This exhibition will display artwork with the curatorial assertion that self-insertion (AKA the hand of the artist) is the future of the landscape genre – allowing both the artist and the viewer to reject environmental-separatism as they reflect upon a world in which their own unique interpretations are pivotal to impacting the Earth we live within. Feeling Big & Being Small aims to highlight approaches to the landscape genre which explore assorted qualities of: daydreaming, automatism, situational emotion, temporal materiality, plein air meditations, and/or reimagined geographies. 

“In the current era, during which human affect on the natural world is not only regularly acknowledged but feared, the grief of the past and present needs to be countered by a hopefulness for the present and future. A person is not so small that loneliness would be a vacuum and not so large that they cannot help watching where they step.” -Morgan Gage

Participating artists:

Colleen Blackard @Colleenblackard
Clara Brill @evel_sound
Shea Carley @eureka_draw
Holly Cerna @hollycerna
Bella Cheng @notcuteart
Thomas Cook @thomascook_art
Eli Decker @eli.decker
Valerie Fowler @valeriefowlerart
Sam Fullilove @very_conspicuous
Morgan Gage @portal.logic
Alyssa Dawn Galloway @alyssadawnarts
Hollis Hammonds @mynameishollis
Jules Buck Jones @jules_buckjones
Caroline Perkison @carolinoleum
Matt Rebholz @rebholzjones
Andew Sakamoto @andewsak