Exhibition - Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke & Mirrors is a group show highlighting optical illusions made by eight artists from a wide range of reflective materials and uncommon methodologies. The artwork on view ignites our irresistible attraction to the elusive materiality of shiny and transparent objects that often serve as distractions or distortions of our physical reality.

Similar to magicians, the artists demonstrate masterful manipulations of materials, in many cases subverting their inherent properties. Multiple artists, including Doug Spencer, Sasha Alexandra, and Amy Hoagland, draw with unconventional tools, such as smoke, strapping tape, and scientific glass rods. Drew Austin and Mary Ehrin mimic nature in metallics, using plants and rocks as their own form of coded language. Joel Swanson and Trey Duvall reframe relational proximities, including a reorientation of the fifty states to fit within a single sheet of stainless steel and an unsettling submersion of light fixtures in liquid. Through a repeated use of materials and geometric forms, Collin Parson hypnotizes the viewer with refractions of light and shadows.