InLiquid Gallery

“Atopos Adaptation” is a multimedia exhibition featuring seven InLiquid Artist Members exploring life and form, and investigating the beauty, diversity, and uniqueness of organisms with whom we coexist. Using ecology as a point of inspiration, the artists in this exhibition blur the lines between the natural and artificial, and art and science. Searching for these connectors, a sentience reveals itself – the innate need to exist and grow, persisting in every symbiotic relationship, and bringing life to a once lifeless form.

The work in this exhibition plays with themes of biomorphism, the design principle of forms reminiscent of living organisms. While not explicitly depicting an existing ecological element, each work displays signs of life through color, shape, and gestural movements. With a strong scientific background, interest, and curiosity, these artists have discovered that through their creative processes, they were unknowingly creating patterns found and extensively researched in math and science. In the dichotomy of intuitively creating life and discovering it through facts and research, we find evidence that we are more connected to the world than we realize.

In Atopos Adaptation, pieces are displayed in a non-traditional and perhaps unexpected style. Rather than sculptures placed on pedestals, they are suspended from the ceiling and arranged in complementary disarray surrounding the 2-dimensional works. The viewer is encouraged to explore the relationships between the pieces just as much as observing the works as individual objects. Through this exploration, we aim to create symbiotic relationships between the work and the walls, referencing those found in nature. Therefore, the art is re-contextualized in our white-cube space as forms growing in the room as opposed to work placed on display.

‍

Patti Dougherty 

She/Her 
‍

Bio

Patti Dougherty is a painter and glass artist living and working in an 1860s farmhouse in Elkins Park, PA. She received her BFA in Glass from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA, and later her MFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD. After graduating, she immersed herself in travels to South America, Italy, Greece, Egypt, and England to study the history of glass, ancient civilizations, and the natural world. She has received awards for her Jewelry and Glass and has been featured in several publications in both areas. Patti has participated in exhibitions nationally and internationally, notably at the National Liberty Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Denton Museum (Denton, TX), Ebeltoft Glasmuseum (Denmark), and a Contemporary Jewelry exhibition at the Renwick Museum (Washington, D.C.). Her glasswork and paintings are driven by her passion for the natural world, and are often inspired by marine life, which she observes through her volunteer work as a reef surveyor for Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire.

‍

Statement

The concept of “time” has been a recurring motif that I explore through the use of symbolic forms. These symbols, carefully selected to strike a balance between universal significance and personal connection, include nests, eggs, marine creatures, and single-celled organisms. These forms encapsulate the essence of natural phenomena deeply entwined with the relentless passage of time. Through my art, I attempt to breathe life into these symbols, often portraying them in states of birth and decay, creating tangible connections to our primeval past while serving as poignant reminders of our endangered future. My artistic language is a tapestry woven from diverse sources of inspiration. Many of my sources are readily discernible, while others remain enigmatic, inviting viewers to embark on their own journeys of interpretation. This deliberate abstraction encourages contemplation and introspection, enabling viewers to engage with the creatures, events, and potential patterns that these forms represent. In essence, my work is a tribute to the natural world and an impassioned call to protect the fragile ecosystems that grace our planet. I hope to ignite a sense of wonder, appreciation, and urgency, inspiring others to join in the mission of conservation and stewardship for the wondrous world that lies beneath the waves.

‍

Marguerita Hagan 

She/Her 

‍
Artist Bio: 

Marguerita Hagan is a ceramic sculptor based in Philadelphia and an activist for the thriving of all life in mutually sustainable communities and environments. The concept of interdependence plays throughout her sculpture, teaching and community arts. 

Throughout her career, Hagan has brought to light the beauty and engineering of our planet’s diverse ecosystems and our powerful role as stewards. The intricate ceramic shines light on the wonder and respect for the fragile, diverse life with which our lives are intrinsically linked. Hagan’s practice is an ongoing discovery, magnifying our awareness, reciprocal responsibility and protection of each other and our planet. 

She received her MFA is from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and her BFA in Ceramics at James Madison University. Her projects include collaborations with artists, scientists and community, environmental art- science residencies, lectures. Her work is in collections and exhibits nationally and internationally.

Artist Statement: 

What does light talk about? I asked a plant that once.

It said, ‘I am not sure, but it makes me grow’

– Thomas Aquinas, 1225 – 1274

Oak trees know. Their roots graft into one flesh so they may share mutual sustenance, benefiting the community as a whole. When one tree is in need, the healthy ones direct their energy in support. This goes brilliantly macro with fungi, the underpins of the terrestrial realm. Their fiber optic-like mycelium likening a high speed internet connects life in the subterranean. Micro-marine organisms connect in exquisite mutually beneficial systems or colonies in the ocean and provide over 50% of all oxygen for the planet. Rich diversity and reciprocal sharing fuel thriving communities and environments. This light-giving flow has enabled all life to thrive for eons. Inherent potential realized moves everything, even light itself.

 It certainly moves me. My work is a response to this light. Interdependence powers my heliotropic projects raising wonder, awareness, inclusivity and positive action.

‍

Thomas Murray

He/Him
 

Bio

Thomas Murray is a painter currently living and working in New Jersey with his wife, partner, and fellow artist Donna Mason Sweigart. They relocated from the US/ Mexico border of South Texas. Thomas earned his MFA at the University of New Mexico in 2003. Residencies include Artestudio Ginestrella in Assisi, Italy and was recently invited to return to Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico, for an honorary artists residency.  He received his Masters degree in Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, and his BS in Fine Art and Art Education from the University of South Florida in Hillsborough County, FL. Thomas has expansive exhibition history, with a majority taking place in Texas and Florida. His work has been acquired by both public and private collections, notably in Holland, Florida, and Italy. He has been a lecturer and instructor for the past 14 years, and currently teaches at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ. 

‍

Statement

Landscapes, flora and fauna are heliotropes. Like heliotropes, human truths, the ultimate story of our lives are also attracted to whatever feeds and nurtures us. This phenomenon is beyond a natural law; it is the inexplicable shape of our existence.  

In my work patterns, layering, flowers, plants and figuration are metaphors for these blueprints of existence. The work itself is a result of an internal heliotrope following the transformation of a painting, drawing, sound installation, photograph, performance or collaboration through the process not unlike the phenomenon of natural laws. I approach process like a “code”, as a “personal paradigm” or descriptor of time and as a vehicle of evolution.  Similarly, the garden metaphor works as an expression of this code, a meditation on color events, focus and subjugation, air as breath and complexity as mystery.  Finally the heliotrope is the expression of transformation, variation and a node where individual heliotropic identities collide and intersect.

Color is also heliotropic.  A painting changes in the way nature changes.  Color is responsive and to one thing or another.  It is much more important to respond than react.  In art that favors concept, elements are also often responsive but occasionally reactive to current political and social ideologies that are important in the work.  

The role of an artist must include a conscience.  The need to say something, to offer a viewpoint for consideration, is almost primal and also necessary.  Works in sound or video add new dimensions to my pursuit, empowering the exploration of form.  Much of this work investigates fixed ego identities and allows me to add unforeseen dimensions to my research and exploration of both idea and form. I believe an artist constantly seeks to unveil not only personal truths, but also the same truths that create the heliotropic nature of existence. Each new work mines a slightly new exploration or a minuscule facsimile of this nature.  I consider this my journey, though admittedly, I favor the search over the “truth.”

‍

Michelle Rothwell 

She/Her

‍
Bio

Michelle Rothwell is a practicing Fine Artist whose work has been shown nationally and internationally in solo, juried, and group shows. Michelle’s Virtual Sculptures and Environments, Collages, and Drawings juxtapose organic and inorganic surfaces to engage our innate sensory awareness of our surroundings. Rothwell has a BA in Studio Art and a Master of Industrial Design, MID. She served in a wide range of professional roles, including Director of Information Architecture, Interaction/Interface/Experience Designer, Virtual Reality Researcher, Product Developer, and creator of a dynamic and systemic toolset for creative transformation called, Holistic Creativity. Her client list includes DuPont, Proctor & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch, AstraZeneca, SAP, Qwest Communications, and Unisys.

Michelle is an Associate Professor of Digital Media and Design with over 20 years of teaching experience. During her career in academia, she created multiple degree programs for several colleges and universities, designed dozens of courses, and mentored hundreds of students and peers. She is the founder of the Game Art BFA program formally at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

‍

Statement

The primary source of my inspiration is the Natural World, the living embodiment of Beauty, Truth, and Wisdom. All around us are connections —seen and unseen— that reveal the very essence of Life.

I perceive Creativity as an unbounded, holistic process that is at the very core of our personal experience as human beings. In general, creativity is present whether a person expresses this impulse through art-making, through witnessing art or through intense engagement with Life.

 Essentially, my artistic practice is an exploration of Nature’s elegant forms, materials, and ecosystems; the relative crudeness of man-made objects, substances, and processes; and deep explorations into personal intuition and imagination. Each piece reveals elements of whimsy and fantasy while simultaneously revealing something innate to our ability for sensuality and conscious awareness.

My art is created using a combination of 3D computer graphics —the same software programs used to create Video Games, Visual Effects in film, and 3D-Printed forms— and traditional materials of artistic mark-making such as ink, graphite, and colored pencil on paper. Both the intricacy and precision of digitally-generated forms and the immediacy and fluidity of hand-generated physical representations delight me as an artist.

‍

Teresa Shields 

She/Her 

‍
Artist Bio: 

Teresa Shields received her MFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA, and her BFA in Fiber from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. She has always been drawn to fabric, thread, wool fiber, magnets and wood. Through embroidery she interprets abstract shapes found in the natural forms of sliced fruits and vegetables. In 2016 she began wet felting and now enjoys exploring the materiality of turning wool fibers into solid but soft hollow forms. Her work is often idiosyncratic and leave the viewer craving a tactile experience. Teresa exhibits her work throughout the United States and locally at Graver's Lane Gallery in Chestnut Hill, and in private collections around the country. She has exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions and has received numerous awards and honors throughout her artistic career. She is an empty nester living and working in Jenkintown, just outside Philadelphia, with her husband and two cats. 

‍

Artist Statement: 

I have been around fabric and stitching my whole life. I am a maker. I love things that have a human touch. I look at nature-plant forms, geometry, cell structures, bones, antlers, wings-to see the underlying connections these things have in common. My embroideries are straight forward. I proceed very deliberately one stitch and then another, each knot, each color a decision, meditative and slow, but always moving forward. I rarely rip out stitches.

My felt making is the opposite of straight forward. It is two steps ahead and one step backwards. The problem child. The art that acts out but is loved unconditionally. If I can't sleep or have a spare minute I am thinking about ways to construct things with wool roving and partial felt. The process is like candy for my ADD brain. Working backwards. Big whole picture, then part to part.

I have a quirky sense of humor that occasionally shows but also love making things that are simply beautiful. Craftsmanship matters to me. Sometimes I set difficult parameters for myself-just because. The challenge is to make things that show my hand, my skill, my vision.

‍

Rachel Blythe Udell 

She/Her 

‍Artist Bio: 

Rachel Blythe Udell works with fibrous materials to create biomorphic sculptures, embroidered textile collages, and installations. She is the recipient of a 2023 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for sculpture, and has had solo shows at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE, The Philadelphia International Airport, and Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ.  Her work has been juried into Art14C, an international art fair, and the 2018 New Jersey Arts Annual. Udell graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Art History, and has studied art and art therapy at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives and works in Mantua, NJ.

Artist Statement: 

I make sculptures, textile collages, and installations from heirloom clothing, yarn, reclaimed fabrics, and other materials.  The language of textiles is that of connection, threading together identity, history, biology, and personal experience. As human beings, we are part of an interacting, breathing membrane, transmitting and receiving the stuff of life between social and psychological systems, ecosystems, solar and cosmic systems. We flow, physically and emotionally, into our surroundings. The materials I use have their own histories, sometimes directly linked to mine, as in the case of familial clothing, sometimes not. Organic patterns in vintage lace and other textiles speak to one another, and seem to pulse with life. Always trying to minimize waste, I bundle together the scraps and ends from my crochet and embroidery pieces, to form new soft sculptural bodies.

I’ve always loved the forms that nature takes: flower buds and blooms, acorns and gourds, trees, the woods, mountains, rivers, streams. Many of these things are echoed within our bodies, like organs and branching arteries, veins, and capillaries.  On the macro end, the cosmic web of galaxies shares structural similarities with our own neural networks. I’m fascinated by the scientific and mathematical frameworks that underlie everything we see.  How all of this translates in my work is not always consciously planned out. Everything feels derived from nature-though not distinct specimens or organs or structures or creatures. I work intuitively and these are the forms that come out of me.