CHRISTINA P. DAY
GINA SNOW MAGID
RAPHAELE SHIRLEY

Christina P. Day has created a site-specific room within the gallery, offering visitors a voyeuristic glance into a created interior domestic space. Each view offers a specific sightline wide enough only for one viewer. After visiting a deceased neighbor’s estate sale, the artist was taken with the accumulation of things one amasses in their lifetime. Some pieces of significance, and often, much of it inconsequential, Day handles found materials in a way that enhances meaning of the objects, then and today. The constellation of objects and found effects within Depth Cue are keepers of time and place—the  dents, scars, and physicality of prior owners speak to the mirrors that of the owner’s lived experience. Depth Cue is named for the way the human visual system determines distances between objects, the installation is a measure of place and person relative to time. Through the sleek and reductive construction lies a metaphor for remembering, or rather, not-forgetting.

Gina Snow Magid’s work expresses the non-verbal, seemingly illogical undercurrent, which connects all things. The artist’s visual language mirrors the friction between the natural or instinctual world and our conditioning. Her paintings engage the viewer with universal aspects of the human condition, putting an emphasis on the feminine, or anima, apotheosis of the psyche. In effect, the paintings induce the feeling one has right before woken up or falling asleep, embracing the liminal space which exists between two worlds: conscious/subconscious, chaos/structure, creation/destruction, beauty/horror, desire/repulsion, present/past and possibly future. The liminality of this tension brings with it heightened awareness, and allows Magid to unite them in a seamless, sensuous reality, capable of resonating meaning on varied levels of perception.

Raphaele Shirley explores representation of the universe through diverse mediums including and not limited to neon, sculpture and performance. Taking a Ptolmaic perspective with a circle with the earth at the center and the world revolving around, this investigation has generated two- or three-dimensional light sculptures, into time-based installations and live performances. Fusing minimalist aesthetics with the power of technology, the works questions space and scale, time, past and future, engaging themes of dystopia, utopia, and the problematic of hope facing the human experience. Drawing from elements of civilization (architecture, science and art history) as well as from natural phenomena (wind, water and light) Shirley undertakes a portrait of the possible, of parallel universes and transient states.

About the Artists

Christina P. Day’s art practice recontextualizes roles related to material lifespan: designer, fabricator, owner, maintainer. Her improvisational building language stems from textile design strategy and is focused on the conversation of material as content. Day’s work takes form in architectural installation, surfacing methods, textile pattern logic and physical match finding. Day is a full-time faculty member of the Fiber Department at Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD), where her teachings focus on cloth production methods and experimental fashion. Recent exhibitions and research on material history have been completed at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (Arlington, VA), Fleisher Art Memorial (Philadelphia, PA), Winterthur (Wilmington, DE), Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE) and Kirkcaldy Museum (Kirkcaldy, Scotland). She maintains her home and studio in Philadelphia, PA.

Gina Magid is a Brooklyn-based painter who creates psychologically and visually layered imagery in paint, charcoal, satin, and other materials. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 2003 and a McDowell Colony fellowship in 2004. Magid has had solo exhibitions at Feature Inc. and Ana Cristea Gallery in New York, Acuna Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles, and Artists Space, New York. Her work has been included in group shows at the Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, New York), DiverseWorks (Houston, TX), the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT), and Exit Art (New York), as well as in “Greater New York 2005,” at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (Long Island City, New York).

Raphaele Shirley is a Franco-American multi-media artist practicing in New York City and Callicoon, New York. Her work ranges from video, painting and technology based sculptural works to public art, place-making social interventions and performance. Her solo or collaborative projects have been presented in venues such as S.R. Guggenheim, The Queens Museum, the Museum of Moving Image (New York), the NCCA, the 2nd Moscow Biennale (Moscow, Russia) and the Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia), and Art Basel, Miami to name a few. Her collaborators range from renowned composers to theater directors, architects, and technology experts from all fields. Currently she is collaborating with Montreal based architecture firm Atelier Apsis for the development of sustainable public arts projects. Their project TEAG was chosen among the finalists for the Land Ary Generator call for proposals for Manheim, Germany. Shirley is recipient with Algis Kizys of the Wave Farm Grant 2023 for their performance piece "20F" developed during the pandemic in Callicoon, NY. Shirley has been the recipient of several grants from the Norwegian Arts Council and received awards for her collaborative projects. She was artist in residence at Harvest works NYC with Rhys Chatham and GH Hovagimyan (2016) and The Arctic Circle (2009/2010).