CONTEMPORARY art gallery IN BEACON, NY

Opening reception is October 10, 2026 from 7 - 9pm!

Distortion Society is thrilled to present Peekaboo! a group exhibition opening October 10, 2026, featuring work by Natale Adgnot, Traci Johnson, Lala Abaddon, Lu Walstad, and Song Watkins Park. Through their work, each artist considers the past—early memories, religious iconography, monocultural dogma, folklore, kitsch—and how it persists in the present. These remnants of the past hold different weight for each artist, yet for all, they remain significant. Harkening to the concept of object permanence, a developmental milestone where a child comes to understand that something continues to exist even when it is no longer perceptible, the exhibition asks: Do these formative relics continue to exist within us when they are no longer visible? What do we internalize, what do we idolize, and what do we shed?

The daughter of a horse trainer in Texas, Natale Adgnot uses abstract sculpture to explore bias and faulty perception as byproducts of her monocultural upbringing. Raised with little awareness of the world beyond her town and church, she was later thrust into a vastness of cultural experience through her travels. Her textile and fiber work speaks to those places: horsehair and Western-style clothing signify Texas; cotton muslin connects her to a decade working in couture in Paris; kimono silk and gold thread nod to her three years in Japan; and thermoplastic accents represent New York City. Natale honors each phase of her life while recognizing the tension between them—the Texan materials always feel slightly incongruous alongside the sophistication of the other three, yet aesthetically, they take the cake. Her work asks: even if we intellectually change our early perceptions, can we ever truly erase the mark they left? 

Traci Johnson’s practice is rooted in the soft subversion of textiles, using yarn, faux fur, beads, glass, and found objects to create tactile environments that function as spiritual roadmaps and alternative architectures of care. Raised within the tension between their strict Black Christian upbringing and queer identity, they learned early that sanctuary is rarely given; it must be built. Drawing from AfriCOBRA, Afrofuturism, Hoodoo, and Femme Camp, Traci explores how African diasporic spiritual traditions survive, adapt, and reveal themselves within contemporary Black life despite histories of displacement, erasure, and religious assimilation. Rather than relics of the past, these traditions become living technologies: tools for navigating grief, remembrance, transformation, and joy.

Lala Abaddon creates entrancing geometric metaweaves by arranging sequenced analog photographs into pairs, then painstakingly hand-cutting and hand-weaving them into final compositions. Her two featured works, “இ_இ” and “ಥ_ಥ,” originate from her Martyr Syndrome series, an introspective recontextualization of the iconography of her Catholic upbringing. “ಥ_ಥ” visualizes the Virgin Mary crying blood, a particularly fascinating image for young Lala that exemplifies the duality of Mary’s existence: to be of service and to bear the pain of loss. Lala folds this Catholic imagery into her personal philosophies, study of the I Ching, and reverence for the divine feminine.

Lu Walstad’s practice is driven by a fixation on objects from the past. Through research-based study of medieval European to Midcentury American historical relics, human-made objects, and the economies in which they were made, Lu finds comfort in a sense of continuous collective human existence. Their uncanny paintings begin with digitally manipulated images of collectibles and kitsch, which they give new life through soft airbrush, joint-compound relief, and a pastel palette on wood panel. The resulting works become modern relics, marrying historical context with contemporary culture.

Song Watkins Park’s luminous and enigmatic paintings are rooted in her experience growing up in Korea and later living in the Midwest United States. Exploring memory, cultural narratives, and the shifting sense of identity within the Asian diaspora, she uses her nude body as both subject and symbol, embracing vulnerability while reclaiming the female figure as a site of resilience and self-definition. The two works, Craft and The Chase, feature a clay sculpture of the artist’s head, reflecting her devotion to self-portraiture. In Song’s work, the most intimate relic is the body itself. Her paintings form a personal visual folklore, exploring belonging, transformation, and the understanding of self.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Peekaboo! will be on view at Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY from October 10, 2026 through February 6, 2027. The gallery is free and open to the public. There will be an opening reception on July 11, 2026 from 7 - 9pm. 

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