Miguel Arzabe, Jessica Cannon, Saskia Fleishman, and Michelle A M Miller: Desire Lines

Curated by Kate Mothes, Young Space/ Dovetail Magazine

For the artists in Desire Lines, landscape takes literal, metaphorical, and metaphysical forms. Themes of heritage, memory, space, and movement coalesce in a grouping in which each artist finds themselves on some kind of journey. Whether recycling organic matter to produce drawing materials, exploring one’s own thoughts and impulses, calling on snapshots from travels, or delving into ancestral and cultural traditions, the terrain investigated here manifests as an array of conduits to new perspectives.

For Saskia Fleishman, landscape serves as a channel for memories, derived from countless snapshots taken of fields, skies, seas, and mountains during her travels. She applies acrylic mixed with sand to digitally-printed chiffon, masking areas to create enigmatic shapes or portals that seem to blur into the distance or the fuzzy recesses of the mind.

In Jessica Cannon’s paintings, patterns radiate from central foci evocative of daybreak over a distant horizon. Read in another way, the gradient beams meld into near total abstraction, evoking a meditative awareness of consciousness or spiritual awakening.

Miguel Arzabe explores the nature of painting itself through a process of destruction and reconstruction, beginning with an abstract image on a traditional canvas, then cutting it down into numerous strips. He weaves these strips together to create tapestry-like surfaces evocative of the vibrant fiber arts of Bolivia, where he traces his family roots.

Michelle A M Miller’s meticulous works on paper are derived from the land itself—and the sea. Miller’s pieces evoke continual metamorphosis, drawing on deep emotion and personal experiences of grief in a mesmerizing, contemplative process. Her shaped pieces float off the wall, casting shadows that lend the effect of a winged specimen display, a series of talismans, or capsules of energy made visible.

-Text by Kate Mothes