STICKS & STONES
Chris Lux, Oreka James, Jade Townsend, Skye Volmar
Bowling Green State University
Sept 2023 - Dec 2023
Sticks and Stones features the vibrant and amorphic practices of Chris Lux (US), Oreka James (CAN), Jade Townsend (NZ), and Skye Volmar (US). Through painting, sculpture, drawing, glass, and multi-media, Sticks & Stones reflects on the amorphic and often latent relationship between contemporary visual art and poetry, within both artistic production process and final exhibition. Artists will be onsite for two weeks to create new site-specific installations for the show.
Oreka James (b. 1991, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) creates paintings and sculptures of portals to alternative realms, in which moments of love, spirituality, the metaphysical and the ephemeral collide. Informed by oralities and folklore, she recalls peoples, places, and stories deeply rooted in their personal life and culture, considering the excavation of histories and futures as a means of wayfinding. Sometimes rendering objects and symbols that hold esoteric knowledge as placeholders for the unknown, James is committed to finding connections between fabricated and literal scapes. James received their BFA in Drawing and Painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design University while studying Furniture Design. She has completed a group residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario and has shown at spaces such as Projet Pangee, Montreal; Efrain Lopez Lopez Project Space, Chicago; Patel Brown Gallery, Toronto; Mercer Union, Toronto; Gallery 44, Toronto; and Margin of Eras Gallery, Toronto; James currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Chris Lux
Born 1980, San Francisco, USA. Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA.
Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu) is a visual artist and storyteller working at the intersection of her Māori, Pākehā and British heritage. She was born and raised in Whanganui before moving to Liverpool, United Kingdom where she lived as a teenager. Townsend recently exhibited a site-specific sculptural commission Matariki at Commercial Bay as part of Whānau Mārama a Māori group exhibition throughout the shopping precinct to celebrate the Māori New Year. Townsend has recently had a solo exhibition Panic Buy at RM Gallery, a collaborative exhibition called Ā muri atu / In the future with Emiko Sheehan at RAMP gallery in Kirikiriroa. Townsend recently brought together a group of artists in the project Hauhake and led a wānanga at Objectspace as part of the Caravannex On Tour artist in residence series. She has previously been awarded residencies at Artspace Aotearoa, Slade School of Art, London and Red Gate Gallery, Beijing. Townsend has exhibited globally across museum, gallery and concept store spaces. Jade holds a BA Hons Fine Art Painting from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Skye Volmar is New Jersey born and bred with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She currently lives and works in Philedalphia. Volmar is a recipient of the Florence Leif Award, grants from the Kyoto Fund and the Center for Reconciliation, a fellowship at the OxBow School of Art and Artist Residency, and an offer for residency with Vermont Studio Center. Recent exhibitions include flower, child (Deli Gallery), among others. Recent publications include Artsy, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, and Paper Magazine
