CONTEMPORARY art gallery IN THE HEART OF BEACON, NY
WE feature emerging and mid-career artists who work to push boundaries, raise questions, and celebrate the unique
current exhibition
April + May, 2024
SWAN SONG
NICO MAZZA
Distortion Society invites you to dive into the embroidered textile fantasies of Swan Song, a solo exhibition by Nico Mazza. Stitching together dream-like landscapes and patterned interiors, Mazza creates figurative works that explore the psychology of desiring the forbidden. She questions the socially constructed ideas of relationships, romance, and gender expression by juxtaposing the delicate tradition of embroidery with complex pictorial narratives depicting lust, tension, and the deconstruction of the body. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, April 13, 2024, from 7-9:30pm and the exhibition will run through June 1, 2024.
At first glance, the intricately embroidered works appear to portray scenes of docile, sensual women, but up close, the viewer is faced with a fiercer protagonist. Destroying the stereotypes of purity and divinity most often associated with swans, the women’s elongated bodies interact in a powerful, playful, sexual, or violent manner, sometimes even wielding scissors—a symbol of women’s work—as a weapon. The women defy physical and social boundaries, allowing them to be devoured, fragmented, and rebuilt by the voyeur. Through this journey of surprise, discomfort, and reconstruction, we are invited to break free from imposed roles and societal norms.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nico Mazza (b. 1989 in Gainesville, Florida) received the SAIC Scholarship and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earning her BFA in 2011. After moving to New York City for a few years, she relocated to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2014, where she currently lives and works. She has participated in various group exhibitions in the US, South America, and Europe and recently presented Swan Song at the prestigious Centro Cultural Borges, El Deseo de No Querer at Quimera Gallery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Blandir el Quiebre at Crudo Contemporáneo in Rosario, Argentina. She has also shown work at art fairs including ArteBA (Buenos Aires), Frieze (London), and Pinta (Miami). Her work was selected for numerous art competitions including El Fugaz (2019 and 2022), Fondo Nacional de las Artes (2021), Salon Nacional de Artes Textiles (2022), and the Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales (2023). In 2023 her work was acquired by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
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Gemma Bailey
A solo exhibition of new works on paper
June 2024 -
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Frances Segismundo
A solo exhibition of new mixed media works
August 2024
past exhibitions
February + March 2024
a hidden quiet
TAJ CAMPMAN
Distortion Society is pleased to present A Hidden Quiet, a solo exhibition of paintings by Taj Campman. Created over the last five years, this body of work signifies a major shift in the artist’s studio practice: a transition from the structure of representational painting to the uncertainty and untamed output of abstraction and a switch in media from acrylic and spray paint to oil paint, acrylic and pencil. There will be an opening reception on Saturday February 10, 2024 from 7-9:30pm and the exhibition will run through April 6, 2024.
In A Hidden Quiet, Campman searches for a place of pure inspiration and unadulterated creative output. He discovers that the bridge between the subconscious and the canvas is shortened. The vocabulary of the mind and the gestures of the brush are in lock step as the painting verbalizes that which his mind has yet to discover.
The paintings are a fresh balance of bold design elements and haphazard, kinetic strokes, highlighting the tension between control and creative abandon. Bright colors and whimsical gestures are juxtaposed against large blocks of beige and moments of chaos. A power-play between light and dark, the work holds social and political weight as it conveys the uncertainty of the world around us.
Taj Campman is a Brooklyn-based fine artist and graphic designer. He grew up under the tutelage of his two multidisciplinary artist parents, and his childhood immersion in art was pivotal in the incubation of Campman’s artistic style. His voice as a painter is strengthened by the combination of traditionalism and modernism, honoring the practices of the Renaissance era while also leaning heavily on modern design.
Between facing mirrors
December 2023 + January 2024
MICHELLE SILVER
Distortion Society is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Gallery Director Michelle Silver. Between Facing Mirrors examines physical and metaphysical space through the lens of motherhood. Resurfacing from the depths of postpartum depression for the second time, Michelle Silver discovers everything about her is illuminated, as if she stands between facing mirrors, seeing multiplicities of herself reflected in her children and exposed to the world around her. As her identity is reconstructed, contradictory elements compete for dominance: mother, artist, duty, desire. An echo of a past life reverberates against the cries of her children. Time stretches forward and bends around her, each moment as tedious as it is tender and fleeting.
Silver uses studio meditation to create the space she lacks both in bodily autonomy and mental capacity. She creates imagined worlds to bear this weight: mysterious landscapes that expand and contract as she skews depth, flattens planes, and layers moments in time. Using only her memory as reference, Silver applies the paint in broad relational stream-of-conscious strokes, where each move is determined by the one before. Heavy layers of paint are added, while other areas are scraped away revealing what’s underneath, a process that documents her inner dialogue. The exhibition will be on view from December 9, 2023 through February 3, 3023.
October + November 2023
somesthesia
LAURA BOCHET
Distortion Society is pleased to present the solo exhibition Somesthesia with new paintings by Laura Bochet. Centering around bodily reactions and memory, these works consider the relationship between connection and communication and how the feeling of closeness translates into memory. Flashes of eye contact and clouds of color swirl around you, distant faces appear and just as quickly, disappear. Here, you are both the observer and the observed, immersed in a silent conversation that recollects your own feelings of closeness, longing and nostalgia. There will be an opening reception on October 14, 2023 from 7pm-9:30pm and the show will run through December 2, 2023.
September 2023
as it were:
ROSIE COHE + DANIEL SHAPIRO
Distortion Society is pleased to present As it were, an exhibition by photographers Rosie Cohe and Daniel Shapiro. The show explores the delicate balance between the seen and the unseen, what is experienced and what is imagined, and the narratives that emerge from the photographer’s distinct yet harmonious perspectives.As it were will be on view during business hours at Distortion Society, 172 Main Street, Beacon, NY. There will be an opening reception on September 9, 2023 from 7pm-9:30pm and the show will run through September 30, 2023.
Distortion:Subverting REality
August 2023
A GROUP EXHIBITION BY SUPER SECRET PROJECTS
Distortion Society is pleased to present a collaborative exhibition with Super Secret Projects, a collective of local emerging and mid-career artists committed to experimentation, diversity, and accessibility in art. The exhibition examines distortion both literally and figuratively: subverting and manipulating the figure, landscape, perception, reality, politics, and/or identity. Closely tied to the founding principles and ideation behind Distortion Society, this exhibition invites viewers to contemplate the multiplicities of distortion in their lives and how these distorted elements intersect and coexist.
Distortion Society is pleased to present the exhibition Un/entangled by Evan Paul English, introducing five new paintings that delve into themes of romance and the process of disentanglement. With a compositional foundation inspired by vintage floral motifs, Evan skillfully dissects and analyzes ideas of American domesticity through a queer lens. Each painting reveals the complex relationship between image and viewer; as the work unravels traditional narratives, the viewer is invited to reconsider their perceptions and preconceived notions.
Hailing from Boise, Idaho, Evan Paul English is an artist now based in Brooklyn, New York. His extensive repertoire spans across a range of artistic mediums, from painting and installation art to ready-made sculpture, murals, and tattoos. Evan’s multidisciplinary practice is inspired by his vast collection of vintage floral ephemera, which serves as the basis for his exploration into the relationship between gender, class, and growing up queer in America.
EVAN PAUL ENGLISH
un/entangled
July 2023
dichotomia
May - June 2023
BRADLEY SILVER AND MICHELLE SILVER
Distortion Society’s first exhibition featuring new work by founders Bradley and Michelle Silver. The Silvers’ lives and artistic practices are marked by dualities: Bradley is a tattooer and a fine artist, Michelle is a graphic designer and a painter; they cohabitate and they coparent. Their studio work, much like their life together, flows and converges in an unconventional way. Drastically different art forms live alongside one another, vibrating on the interconnectivity of their maker’s shared experiences, love and the life they’ve created together.
