Will Hutnick

Will Hutnick is an artist and curator based in Wassaic, New York, where he is Director of Artistic Programming at the Wassaic Project, a year-round residency and creative community. Hutnick is also Co-Director of the gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, and has curated numerous exhibitions there and at other venues such as SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Trestle Projects, and Pratt Institute. Hutnick has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo, Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency by Collar Works, DNA Gallery, and Vermont Studio Center, and a curator-in-residence at Benaco Arte, Sirmione, Italy, and Trestle Projects, Brooklyn. He is a 2017 Martha Boschen Porter Fund grant recipient from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and a 2015 grant recipient from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Portrait photo by Monica Hamilton.

Amelia Briggs

Born 1985. Lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee.

2015 MFA, University of Memphis, Tennessee. 2009 BFA, Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University, Indianapolis.

"I was first drawn to how anthropomorphic Briggs’ work is, and the fine balance between what is repulsive yet cozy. The objects appear to be like keepsakes, talismans, or artifacts from some unknown, mystical, or animated universe. Despite tip-toeing towards violent connotations where images of deer heads and “trophy bucks” come to mind, in their place is something surprisingly playful, surreal, familiar and warm. Briggs’ sensitivity towards combining various media, along with the artist's propensity for distinct characters, reminds me of my (robust!) keychain and sticker collections that I had as a kid, respectively. The viewer wants to hold onto these works—their longing, their nostalgia—as tightly as possible, before they melt away."

Artwork Image: Moppet Installation, 2019. Mixed media.

Maryamsadat Amirvaghefi

Born 1989 in Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

2017 MFA, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

"Amirvaghefi’s visually compelling collages, paintings, drawings and sculpture are deceptively complex, and pack a punch. Amirvaghefi’s work playfully mines the arena where sports, identity, humor and language mix. The work is reminiscent of fragmented memories and the tools that attempt to capture them, specifically, distorted old Polaroids that have either been purposefully cut up and/or manipulated, or have just come out weird. There is an altered, conflated and mediated sense of time and memory, one that we’re completely convinced of. The viewer is totally on board, even if the narrator/memories might not be the most reliable. Amirvaghefi’s use of collage, both as a formal and conceptual parameter, decidedly fix narratives and compositions in new spaces, (re)negotiating alternative realities."

Artwork Image: Famous Female Bodybuilder, 2017. Mixed media on paper. 12 x 9 in.

Scott Allen Roberts

Born 1980 in Los Angeles, California. Lives and works in Gardiner, New York.

2002 BA, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

"Roberts’ lush and sensual paintings navigate the liminal space between day and night, physical and virtual, real and imagined. “Twilight” is an apt reference point and metaphor for Roberts’ warped notions of time and space. Roberts’ graphic visual vocabulary and hyper-saturated colors, combined with all-over patterns and unique vantage points, speak to where/when the tangibility and recognizability of the perceptible world fades away. This opens up a space where memories and recognizable objects daringly disappear and reappear, and new and imagined realities take shape."

Artwork Image: Interim, 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 52 x 68 x 2 in.